PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has appreciated increase in the earnings of the government’s rest houses after their handover to the Galiyat Development Authority for opening to tourists saying the move will help promote tourism in the region.

He said this while presiding over a meeting of the GDA board of directors in Nathiagali here on Friday.

Information minister Mushtaq Ghani, lawmakers Akbar Ayub, Sardar Mohammad Idrees, Faisal Zaman, Mehmood Jan and Dr Azhar Jadoon, local government secretary, Hazara division commissioner and principal secretary to the CM, and members of the GDA board of governors attended the meeting.

The participants examined ways and means to promote tourism in the province and made many decisions for the purpose, said an official statement issued here.

The CM asked the relevant authorities to run all government-owned rest houses in the province along commercial lines to increase their earnings and provide efficient services to tourists.

He took notice of the reported indecent behaviour of the rest house employees in some areas towards tourists and ordered the transfer of the culpable ones.

He also ordered the holding of training programmes to build the capacity of rest house employees.

The GDA director general said the tourism department handed over the control of 16 rest houses in the region to the GDA in line with the chief minister’s directives.

He said after the handover to the GDA, the rest houses earned Rs2.5 million in the holy month of Ramazan as more than 1,000 tourists stayed there having all basic facilities on their disposal.

The CM, however, said the government didn’t have the capacity and dynamism to run commercial activities in its rest house.

He also ordered the appointment of educated people to rest houses.

The CM said the government would focus on the overall face lifting of Galiyat region.

He asked the relevant authorities to accelerate work on the establishment of a township in the region over 2,000 kanals of land.

Mr Khattak ordered the establishment of commercial and residential zones and provision of electricity, water and other necessities to them on emergency basis.

He said the township located at an altitude of 7,800 feet from the sea would be at the most attractive site of Galiyat and would add to the beauty of the area.

The CM said the area desperately needed few residential townships but unfortunately that aspect was totally ignored by the successive governments.

He ordered the development of infrastructure in the new township.

He appreciated the GDA for removing encroachments from main bazaars and widening roads and ordered more efforts against encroachments.

Mr Khattak said the GDA board should meet on monthly basis to promote tourism in the region.

“The GDA board should make its own decisions without the influence of anyone to promote tourism and increase the authority’s income from tourist and commercial activities,” he said.

The CM said a summary should be sent to him for approval of the replacement for water pipes and pumping machinery in the region.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2017