PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan on Tuesday directed the relevant officials to take all possible steps to ensure rehabilitation of highways and completion of development work in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on fast track.

“The region needs to be developed on priority basis to ensure its real progress,” he told a meeting of the Fata Infrastructure and Works Authority (FIWA) Unit here at the Governor’s House.

Fata secretary (planning and development) Mohammad Tariq, former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa secretary (communication and works), Engineer Habib Ali, former PDA director (technical), engineer Afzal Shah, principal secretary to the governor Dr Mohammad Fakhre Alam and relevant officials from Fata Secretariat attended the meeting.

A detailed briefing was given to the governor on the ongoing development schemes and rehabilitation of highways in the region, said a handout issued here.

The governor said restoration of peace, development of infrastructure and rehabilitation of people in Fata was the federal government’s top most priority.

He said solid steps had been taken to bring Fata into the mainstream to end underdevelopment and backwardness of the tribesmen.

Sardar Mahtab said the federal government was aware of the tribesmen’s difficulties and problems and therefore, efforts were being made at all levels to their resolution to end a sense of deprivation prevailing among local population.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2015

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