January 17, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 16, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 16: Federal Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Justice (R) Abdul Razzak Thahim has said that the government is fully committed to complete all development schemes in time under Khushhal Pakistan Programme-II.

He was speaking at a meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Local Government and Rural Development on Monday.

Chaired by Senator Mohammad Sarwar Khan, the meeting was attended among others by senators Bashir Ahmed, Mrs Kalsoom Perveen, Engineer Rasheed Ahmed Khan, Sanaullah Baloch, Maulana Rahat Hussain and Syed Hidayatullah Shah.

The meeting discussed the progress and utilization of funds in the years 2003-04 and 2004-05 on development schemes in Sindh and Balochistan, with representatives from HESCO, KESC, PTCL, IG and R&D (Balochistan) SSGC and IT ministry.

The senators expressed concern over the delay in development schemes and pointed out that lengthy and complicated long procedures were the main hindrance in timely completion of various schemes. The procedures should be simplified for early completion of projects, the meeting observed.

A recommendation was also made for speeding up the administrative approval of schemes at provincial level. In case of delay at provincial level, it was suggested that federal ministry of local government should be given the authority.

Regarding electrification of villages, it was pointed out that the projects were not completed within specified time in many villages.

Discussing about the projects of PM Secretariat with WAPDA, which aims at provision of electricity to all villages by the next year, it was suggested that senators should be given a role in it and all the projects should go through them as they were the impartial members of society.

It was also recommended that Wapda schemes should be extended to the provision of irrigation water through tubewells as these wells till now were only used for potable water.

Sarwar Khan observed that all these development schemes would benefit the common man and would help in the development of Balochistan. Their timely completion need to be ensured with checks and balance at every level. —APP