PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Saturday decided to set up a commission headed by a senior member of the board of revenue to look into the issues, especially the people’s grievances, about land settlement process in Malakand division.

Chairing the second meeting here on developmental schemes and people’s issues in Malakand division, the chief minister said the commission would make workable recommendations to the government on the matter.

According to a statement issued here, Mr Mahmood directed the public health engineering department to take over all non-functional tubewells sunk by different organisations in the division and come up with a plan to make them functional.

He asked the higher education department to take necessary steps for the start of classes in all newly-established colleges across the province from the upcoming academic year.

The chief minister directed the communication and works departments to ensure the completion of development projects on time and without compromising quality and quantity of work.

He said the contractors found to be involved in substandard work would be blacklisted, while strict action would be taken against the relevant government officials in light of the monitoring and evaluation reports.

Cabinet members Shaukat Yousafzai, Riaz Khan, Shafiullah and Wazirzada, members of the provincial assembly from Malakand region, senior member of the board of revenue, secretaries of the relevant departments, representatives of the federal organisations, and other senior officials attended the meeting.

The officials told participants that 20 of the 66 decisions made in the last meeting regarding Malakand development projects had been implemented, while progress on 38 was satisfactory and on eight slow.

Regarding Buner district, they said the Dagar district headquarters hospital had been upgraded from Category B to Category A; 12 drinking water schemes had been completed; work on 17 was in progress, and PC-I of two schemes was being reviewed.

They said PC-I of the up-gradation of Bisham hospital in Shangla district had been prepared and would be sent to the relevant forum for approval in the next two days.

The officials said the upgradation of eight schools in Bisham had been proposed and its PC-I had already been approved.

They said a project for building the capacity of the Chitral district headquarters hospital had been proposed for inclusion the next annual development programme, while feasibility work was under way for the upgradation of Upper Chitral tehsil headquarters hospital as the district headquarters hospital.

The officials also said 1,377 positions of the police personnel had been created in Upper and Lower Chitral region.

Regarding the development projects in Lower Dir district, they informed participants that the plan to upgrade Lal Qila hospital from Category D to Category C had been proposed for inclusion the next financial year’s ADP.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2021