KHAR: The Bajaur Agency political administration on Wednesday decided to include only the community-oriented development schemes in the next annual development programme for the region.

The decision was made during a meeting, which discussed the Draft Annual Action Plan here.

Senior officials of the administration, chiefs of the relevant departments attended the meeting chaired by Bajaur Agency political agent Abdul Jabbar Shah.

The participants discussed the ongoing development projects funded by the federal government and NGOs in the area.

Participants discussed development schemes proposed for the ADP 2014-15 in detail.

The political agent expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed schemes and asked the relevant officials to review them.

He asked officials to identity the sites of development schemes in line with the recommendations of the community and not those of influential people.

“It is time that we should change our policy towards development activities. It is the responsibility of the heads of departments to identity only those projects, which are meant for the welfare of the people.

“In the past, most schemes were planned to please certain people and areas,” he said.

Mr Shah asked the relevant officials to review the proposed schemes for the next ADP and submit a new list to his office by Monday in consultation with local community.

He said on the special orders of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor, the administration wanted to go for development schemes, which served the people only.

The participants decided that development schemes would be approved for areas in light of their population.

They also said the administration won’t yield to the pressure of influential people, including parliamentarians, for the approval of development schemes.

The participants decided to form a special committee to ensure transparency in the execution of the federal government-sponsored development schemes in the agency.

They said the political agent and heads of all relevant departments would visit sites of development projects on weekly basis to ensure speedy and quality work.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2014