PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Tuesday ordered the speedy sale of the timber logs lying in the government’s depots to increase the province’s revenues and provide the people with wood at reasonable rates.

He issued these directives during a meeting convened at the Chief Minister’s House here on the implementation of the ‘green policy’.

According to a statement issued here, adviser to the CM for environment and forests Ishtiaq Urmer, special secretary forests Ziaul Haq and chief conservator Siddique Khattak attended the meeting.

Former provincial minister Yousaf Tarand was also in attendance.

The officials informed participants about the transportation, marketing and sale of wood cut under the 2003 policy and said 3.3 million cubic feet timber was available in the province that had been properly validated by the relevant committee.

They said apart from marketing of two million cubic feet wood, 0.5 million cubic feet wood had already been sold generating a revenue of Rs700 million for the province.

The chief minister took note of the slow pace of marketing and sale of available timber and ordered the expediting of the process to complete the sale of wood by next April.

He also sought a comprehensive plan on the marketing of the available timber and warned he won’t tolerate delaying tactics in this respect.

Also, the chief minister was briefed on the preparation of working plans for the management of forests in the province. The officials told him that of the 42 working plans, 18 had been prepared.

They said such working plan included steps for harvesting and development of forests in the province.

The CM ordered the early preparation of such plans to ensure their timely execution.

He asked the high-ups of the forest department to convene a meeting every week to review progress on such plans.

The CM issued directives for taking stakeholders along in the preparation of such plans to redress their grievances about non-harvesting of forests and ordered the formation of teams at district level in this respect.

While appreciating the performance of the forest department, he declared its strategy for preservation of forests excellent.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2016