HARIPUR: Provincial minister for communication and works Akbar Ayub Khan has said the provincial government has approved the most important projects of an IT park and digital city for Haripur, which would generate 35,000 new jobs for the locals.

He stated this while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of newly-constructed Central Jail Road. Dr Hasnain Raza Turbai, president Haripur Doctors Association, organised the ceremony at his Pathan Colony residence.

The provincial minister said the PTI-led government was directing its resources to equipping youths with modern education and skills of IT, and the completion of these projects would not only create thousands of jobs but also give boost to national economy.

He said an Austria-supported project of University of Applied Sciences was at completion stage and classes would commence from October this year. He also listed the developmental projects that he got approved for Haripur which included bypass road, two higher secondary schools, government high school for boys No 4, a number of road projects, upgradation of district headquarters hospital, medical college and beautification plan of Hairpur.

About amendment in the Local Government Act, 2013, he said scraping the district council and giving more powers to tehsil and city governments would improve the governance at the grassroots level. He claimed that direct election of tehsil nazim would grant the village and tehsil councils more financial autonomy.

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION: The core objective of the District Public Safety Commission was to provide relief to general public against the excesses of police together with addressing the problems that the police force was exposed to in day-to-day duties, said speakers at an orientation session that the commission organised on Saturday.

DSPs, SHOs, additional SHOs and investigation officers of all the police stations attended the session.

The commission’s members, Sadaqat Khan and Ch Mohammad Dad, shared the background and need of constituting the commission, saying that its purpose was to act as an oversight body with a legal mandate of keeping check on the excesses of police.

The facilitators said since the complaints of delay in registration of FIR, illegal detentions, subjecting detained persons to torture were rampant the government, under international conventions, had for the first time incorporated the role of the safety commission in the Police Order 2002 and later the KP province enacted its own KP Police Act 2017.

The facilitators provided orientation to the participants on the structure, powers and responsibilities of the commission and urged the police officers to share their progress and problems so the commission could take them up with the home department and the chief minister.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2019