KARACHI, July 26: President General Pervez Musharraf has called for accelerating the pace of development in Sindh to improve the quality of life of the people.
He was addressing during a briefing held on development in Sindh here at the Chief Minister House on Wednesday.
Sindh’s Chief Secretary Fazalur Rehman briefed the president about development projects in the province.
Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, provincial ministers, advisers to the Sindh chief minister and senior officials of the provincial government attended the meeting.
Stressing the need for rapid development in Sindh, he said that it should be carried out in an effective manner, adding that Sindh should follow the pace at which Punjab was making progress on development projects.
President Musharraf stressed the need to ensure progress in the social sector, including education and health sectors.
He talked about the revival of national economy and pointed out the improvement in economic indicators and said that the impact of progress should now reach the grass-roots level.
“The end-result of governance is the well-being of the people,” the president said, adding that the main objective of the government should be people’s progress and prosperity and improving their quality of life.
The president stressed the need to tackle issues of unemployment, poverty and inflation and said that with industrialisation and inflow of more foreign direct investment, more job opportunities would be created, reducing the incidence of poverty.
Stressing the need for ensuring uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water, electricity and gas, the president said: “We must make sure that electricity is provided to a maximum (number of) places.” He said that according to Wapda, every village in the country would be electrified by December 2007.
The president said that special attention should be paid to projects in the fields of electricity, water and gas, adding that stress should also be laid on human resource development.
The president emphasised that the country still needed to do a lot in health and education sectors to make them comparable with international standards.
Stressing the need to improve literacy in the country, the president called for universalising education and improving the academic standards and said that the national literacy level was very low.
President Musharraf also emphasised the need for streamlining the education system and said that schools should be provided where needed besides making teachers available for them.
Sindh Education Minister Dr Hameeda Khuhro told the president that steps were being taken in this direction and funding had also been provided by the Sindh government and the World Bank.
The president called for devising a five-year education strategy and said that targets should be pursued with commitment and devotion. He said that he would like to see the plan ready in the next couple of months.
President Musharraf said that the resources should be utilised for the benefit of people.
Referring to the need of bringing about what he called a ‘white revolution’ in the dairy sector, he called for devising effective milk collection system and said that planning should be realistic.
The president also said that sufficient processing and value-addition facilities should be provided for vegetables and fruit products.
Talking about the issue of government borrowings, the president said that it was an international phenomenon, adding that institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were there to lend.
He said that in the past borrowing was done to service the country's debts but now, funds were borrowed to finance development projects, adding that the government was resorting to borrowing for development and its benefit was manifolds.
The president said that he was happy about development in Sindh.--APP
KARACHI, July 26: President General Pervez Musharraf has called for accelerating the pace of development in Sindh to improve the quality of life of the people.
