LAHORE: Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Friday laid a foundation stone of the country’s first autism school in the public sector.

She directed the authorities concerned to immediately start hiring autism experts.

“Pakistan’s first autism school project is very close to my heart. A child with autism deserves compassion and love,” she said and inspected the model of autism school and was briefed on it by the authorities concerned here on Friday.

The autism school will have 11 classrooms for junior and 10 for senior sections. A cubicle speech session, 10 classrooms, therapy room, paeds room, pre-vocational training room, daily living activity room and computer room will be established on the ground floor while 3 classrooms, multi-purpose hall, committee room, library, resource room and material development room will be set up on the first floor.

Security wall, fire alarm system, telephone exchange and overhead reservoir will be established in the school.

Meanwhile, presiding over a special meeting to review revenue targets for the first quarter, the chief minister sought a record of land owned by various departments.

She directed the authorities concerned to prepare a plan for the best use of government land. She also directed to expand the scope of the Punjab Revenue Authority to various districts of the province.

She directed a plan to increase the financial resources of the province. She also directed the relevant authorities to compile authentic data of restaurants, bakeries and marriage halls across the province.

The chief minister said: “The collection of revenue will be increased without increasing taxes on the public. Whatever is collected in the public treasury will be spent on the people.”

Maryam Nawaz also fixed a timeline for the creation of a legal framework of the Punjab Revenue Authority.

She lamented, “I want to do a lot for the people, but the financial resources are not that much. Revenue collection targets should be fulfilled in any case.”

She congratulated the departments that met their revenue targets.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2024