QUETTA: The Balochistan government has decided to set up a committee, to be headed by Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani, for monitoring work on development projects, each estimated to cost over a Rs1 billion, in the province.

The decision was made at a meeting held here on Tuesday to review development affairs of the province. The meeting was presided over by the chief minister and attended by, among others, some provincial ministers, Chief Secretary Dr Akhtar Nazeer and Additional Chief Secretary of Planning and Development Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta.

It was decided that the chief secretary and secretaries of the departments concerned would be members and Mr Bhutta secretary of the committee.

The meeting also decided to set up committees on divisional level for removing hurdles in the way of early completion of development projects. The commissioners of the six divisions would head the divisional committees.

The meeting discussed appointment of project directors for the development projects costing over Rs1bn and decided to improve selection process of the directors.

The Chief Minister’s Initiative programme was also reviewed and the teams comprising district education officers, executive engineers of communication and building and deputy commissioners were directed to visit schools included in the programme.

The education secretary was directed to declare at least one high school of each district a modal school which would be later upgraded as higher secondary school.

Speaking at the meeting, the chief minister stressed the needed for changing the system to rectify flawed policies causing wrongdoings. “We need a system under which every official fulfils his responsibility,” he said, adding that unfortunately instead of appointment of competent officials on important posts, incompetent officials were appointed on the basis of recommendations of influential people.

He said that this practice was creating problems, adversely affecting performance of different departments and also stopping development process. “We have to change this attitude in the larger interest of the province,” Mr Alyani said.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2019