NOWSHERA, Nov 14: Federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao has said the government has devised a comprehensive policy to develop the backward areas.

He was speaking to a 15-member team of the People’s Youth (Sherpao) that called on him here on Friday.

The government, he said, had focused its attention on improving the living standard of the common man and taken concrete steps to check the price hike.

Mr Sherpao assured student activists that the government strictly followed the merit policy in all sectors of life.

The minister described the recent visit of President Pervez Musharraf to China and South Korea as highly-successful, adding that the forex deposits of the country had reached $11.5 billion due to the concrete policies of the government.

Mr Sherpao, who also heads his own faction of the PPP, claimed that his party had become a major political force in the NWFP and urged the workers to actively participate in the party membership campaign.