August 25, 2006	Friday	Rajab 29, 1427

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LAHORE, Aug 24: With a view to ensuring quality work and timely completion, the Punjab government has handed over the execution of Rs7 billion project of providing missing facilities to all its schools, basic health units and rural health centres in the province to army’s National Logistics Cell.

This is the first decision of its kind, announced at a marathon meeting of all DCOs, EDOs (health, education and works and services), and monitoring officers, which was presided over by Chief Secretary Salman Siddique in the GOR-I’s civil officer’s mess here on Thursday.

Official sources informed Dawn that the reason given for handing over the execution of the huge civil works to the NLC was that it would ensure quality construction and transparency.

Another reason was that the government wanted to complete the project during the current fiscal year, which, it thought, could only be ensured by the NLC.

The project to provide missing facilities in schools was launched two years ago, and since then it had been handled by the Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme project director through the district governments. The project of provision of missing facilities in RHCs and the BHUs was launched this year and was being supervised by the health department.

Officials said the authorities concerned were not pleased with the pace of the execution of the civil works and the reason behind the delay was that not many private sector contractors were available or willing to work in remote districts.

The meeting was informed that joint teams of districts and NLC would conduct a survey of missing facilities in 64,000 schools and nearly 2,200 BHUs and RHCs. Following which the NLC would execute all the projects.

The NLC chief said the cell would donate one school and one BHU to each district after successfully executing the project.

Officials said it was also revealed in the meeting that ground work of the much-trumpeted around Rs2 billion Sasta Ration scheme had not been completed in almost half of the districts in the province.

The scheme was launched by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi in Lahore early this month, and many a districts had not as yet even prepared the lists of people eligible for receiving sugar, wheat flour and pulses at rates lower than in the market.

A DCO said the scheme had many dimensions and it was a lengthy process to identify those eligible for receiving the assistance. The Punjab government wants to benefit one million people through the scheme, and every district is allowed a fixed number of deserving people in accordance with its population.

The chief secretary reportedly asked the DCOs to complete the lists at the earliest and determine sale points so that people could be facilitated in purchasing the subsidized items. He also asked them to keep a track of the performance of price magistrates, and fix rates of essential items so that shopkeepers could not overcharge customers.

Earlier, he said a public health and sanitation reforms programme devised on the pattern of reforms in education and health sectors was in the pipeline.

He said environment for foreign investment was favourable, asking the DCOs to identify government land which could be used for availing the opportunity.

The meeting also reviewed one-window facility offered in government departments, retrieval of government property from illegal occupants, construction of special education centres in all tehsils in the province and provision of incentives to special children.