PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet members were briefed about the Mines and Minerals Bill, 2025, on Friday amid calls for withdrawal of the proposed legislation over controversy about the province’s right to natural resources.

It was the second briefing on the bill to the cabinet in the last few days.

Sources said the bill was not part of the agenda for the meeting but a special presentation about it was arranged by the secretary and director-general of the mines and mineral department at the request of cabinet members.

The cabinet members told the chief minister who was in the chair that they should be properly briefed about the contents of the bill to enable them to respond to the questions raised by lawmakers and party workers. The mines secretary and director general highlighted technical aspects of the proposed law.

Restoration, enhancement of grant approved for seminaries

The cabinet approved the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cultivation, Extraction, Refining, Manufacturing and Sale of Derivatives of Cannabis Plants for Medicinal Research, Industrial and Commercial Purposes) Rules, 2025, according to a statement.

It added that the approval was aimed at enabling the government to regulate cannabis production for medicinal and industrial purposes, optimally utilise its economic potential and provide a framework for licensing regime, stringent terms and conditions for licensees, and effective monitoring mechanism to avoid misuse and pilferage.

According to it, the move also provides for a taxation regime to maximise revenue generation, mitigating illicit production, trafficking, and creating livelihood opportunities for the locals and promoting research on cannabis in the province.

“The rules provide for provision of licenses with prescribed terms and conditions against payment of fee to be determined by the provincial government, the statement said adding that these licenses include cannabis cultivation, nursery, processing, analytical or laboratory testing, medical purposes, research, sale for industrial and commercial purposes, transport, pharmacy shops or medical dispensary, whole-sale, retail, CBD-only edible cannabis, hemp cultivation, and processing.”

The cabinet approved the merger of the Governor’s Inspection Team with Provincial Inspection Team as cost saving measure since after the Fata’s merger with KP and amendments to the Universities Act, 2012, GIT had become redundant necessitating the merger.

It also granted approval to the launch of the Sehat Card Transplant and Implant Scheme, saying the provincial government will bear the cost of bone marrow, liver and kidney transplant cochlear implant of all such patients from the province without any discrimination.

The cabinet approved Rs1 billion as supplementary grant for provision of free textbooks and schoolbags to students in merged tribal districts. It directed authorities to prepare a scheme for the provision of schoolbags to all schoolchildren, starting from those out of school children being rolled during the ongoing campaign.

It approved restoration and enhancement of grant-in-aid for seminaries in the province and released a sum of Rs100 million for the purpose.

The cabinet approved the revised Annual Developmental Project of University of Engineering and Applied Sciences Swat at a total revised cost of Rs3636.5 million and its re-naming as University of Computing Sciences Swat. It has been decided that the main campus of the University will be urgently completed to shift UEAS from a rented building to the main campus during the current financial year.

The cabinet granted a waiver to the health department from procedure for lease of local government property for construction of civil dispensaries in Polio related super high-risk union councils of Peshawar.

The cabinet approved the appointment of the finance, technical and HR members of the board of directors of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Transmission and Grid System Company.

The cabinet approved the construction of the remaining part of the Northern Section of the Peshawar Ring Road from Warsak Road to Nasir Bagh Road.

It also approved the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Servants Housing Foundation Bill, 2025. Under the scheme, government servants will be provided with plots for construction of houses in a proper manner.

In order to ensure availability of water to the increasing population of Peshawar, the cabinet approved construction cost of intake structure and tunnel for drinking water supply scheme from Mohmand Dam hydropower project from provincial resources.

In view of the increasing population and the depleting groundwater situation in Peshawar, a scheme has been proposed to provide 300MGD (470 cusecs) of water from Mohmand Dam. As per the feasibility study, the scheme is expected to meet 80 per cent of the city’s water demand by 2048 through a gravity flow system.

Although the Mohmand Dam’s reservoir storage already caters for the provision of drinking water, the original PC-I of Mohmand Dam project prepared by Wapda does not cover the cost of the drinking water supply scheme to Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2025