MANSEHRA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan on Monday said his party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was set to introduce a new law to eliminate corruption from the province.

“We have zero tolerance for corruption and will soon introduce a whistle-blower reward law in the province under which informants from within the staff will identify corruption in government departments and get 30 percent of the recovered money,” Imran told reporters after planting a sapling in Nawasher area here to inaugurate the monsoon tree plantation campaign.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, Senator Azam Khan Swati and Hazara police DIG Akhtar Hayat Khan Gandapur were also present on the occasion.

The PTI chief and the chief minister visited nurseries and seedling areas in the reserved mountainous forests in Nawasher area.

PTI chief says govt committed to freeing KP of corruption

They also attended a briefing on the ‘tsunami billion tree plantation programme’ launched in the province last year.

Imran Khan said the provincial government launched the tree plantation programme to bring about a green revolution in the province.

“Through this green revolutionary programme, we will not only plant over one billion saplings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a stipulated period but will also create 500,000 jobs for local residents,” he said.

The PTI chairman said during the last one decade and so, the forests and trees of Rs300 billion were illegally cut in the province.

“We will recover a huge sum of money plundered by timber smugglers not only through the provincial accountability body but also through the upcoming whistle-blower law. This will turn out to be a highly effective step against corruption,” he said.

Imran Khan said the provincial government was also going to launch ‘adopt forests programme’ in collaboration with the private sector.

“Lately, two affluent people donated Rs2 million, which has already been invested in the launch of that programme,” he said. The PTI chairman said under the ‘adopt forests programme’, the entire province would be divided into areas of 5,000 kanals each and that two custodians would be hired to take care of each of them.

“Our main objective is to bring more and more land under frosts and one should be there as custodian to protect plantation from animal grazing,” he said.

On the occasion, Dr Faizul Bari, the project director of the billion trees forestation programme, said 700 million trees would be planted in the province, while the rest would be induced through natural phenomena regenerations.

“Besides planting one billion trees under the programme, an area of 10 million hectres will also be brought under forestation. This will increase forest cover in the province,” he said.

Dr Faizul Bari said under the four years forestation programme, which was launched In November 2014, a total of 18 million saplings had been planted.

He said 250 million trees would be planted in 2015, 150 million in 2016 and 182 million in 2017.

Dr Faizul Bari also said 200 million seedlings would be provided to farmers free of charge for use as fuel wood.

He said 20.8 million seedlings had so far been raised in Mansehra district and 9.6 million of them were grown in private nurseries.

Dr Faizul Bari said 386 men had been provided with permanent business of nursery growing, while around 2500 people had been engaged as labourers by forest department for that project.

COUPLE DROWN IN RIVER: A man and his wife drowned in the Kunhar River in Mahandri area of Kaghan valley on Monday.

Relatives said the woman left home after having heated exchanges with husband over a family dispute and jumped into the river.

They said the woman’s husband followed suit to save her but he too drowned.

Local divers fished the bodies out of the river and shifted them to a hospital.

The police registered a case and began investigation.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2015

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