LAHORE: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Wednesday approved the recruitment of traffic wardens on 1,400 vacant posts besides directing for special attention to road engineering.

Chairing a meeting to improve the traffic system of Lahore, the chief minister ordered immediate steps to improve the flow of traffic and announced drive against encroachments.

The additional chief secretary (home) and chief traffic officer presented various proposals for removing hurdles faced by citizens. The meeting decided to include chapters about traffic laws in school syllabus and the chief minister asked the line departments to compile it. He asked the line departments to submit final recommendations within 14 days.

The CM also directed that 25 public sector universities be shifted to solar energy by the end of the current financial year. He was told that 20 to 30 per cent of electricity could be saved with this measure. The meeting decided that buildings of other public sector departments would also be converted to solar energy in phases for which Emirati and Korean companies had shown interest for investment.

CM Buzdar chaired another meeting about the construction of small dams and reviewed a proposal of phased construction of 13 dams in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur that were affected by hill torrents.

In the first phase, the proposal for constructing seven small dams in DG Khan was reviewed. The CM said hill-torrent dams would be constructed in Koh-i-Suleman Range for flood management.

The chief minister directed the irrigation department to complete a feasibility study at the earliest.

The irrigation secretary briefed that an average of Rs4 to Rs15 billion would be spent on every small dam meant for storing water from hill torrents.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2019