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MULTAN, March 30: The Punjab government would establish a 250-bed modern district headquarters hospital at Sher Shah Bypass at a cost of Rs1.4 billion. Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said this while addressing a public meeting at the Qasim Bagh Stadium on Friday.
The project had been shelved for the past four years.
Mr Elahi said that his government had spent Rs62 billion on the development of south Punjab in the last four years while projects worth Rs12 billion alone had been launched in Multan district.
He said an emergency centre had been established at the Nishtar Hospital and a dental college and a nursing college were being set up in Multan. He said the Multan burn unit would be made functional before the launch of the Lahore burn unit.
He said a home economics college was also under construction and classes would start there after six month while 150 acres for an engineering university and 27 acres for a women’s university had been acquired.
He said the Multan Industrial State had been revived and it would create 100,000 jobs after its completion.
He said a labour colony would also be established in the industrial state while two bypasses were being constructed around the city costing Rs2 billion. He said Rs200 million had been released to buy land for the roads.
He announced the establishment of a degree college in the limits of the city on the demand of Sheikh Tahir Rasheed.
He announced ownership rights for 12 kutchi abadi dwellers and Rs50 million for each town of the Multan city district government. He announced Rs7.5 billion for water supply and sewerage schemes.
Malik Sikandar Bosan, Moeen Riaz Qureshi, Rana Qasim Noon, Mian Faisal Mukhtar, Rai Munsab Ali and Hafiz Iqbal Khakwani also addressed the gathering.
POOR SHOW: Despite impounding of over 200 vehicles by traffic police and district government officials’ efforts to attract people for the chief minister’s public meeting, the poorly-attended show disappointed Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi.
His displeasure was evident from the fact that he did not announce any new project for Multan and just repeated old projects.
Police impounded over 200 vehicles to transport people to the public meeting. The lack of transport caused hurdles for citizens, especially children and women.
Vehicles were seized to bring the participants at the meeting and were given to union council (UC) nazims.
A UC nazim told Dawn on the condition of anonymity that his town nazim had asked him to bring 200 people to the meeting.
A town nazim announced that schemes worth Rs500,000 would be given to those nazims who would bring maximum people to the gathering.
A large number of portraits of President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shuakat Aziz, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Mr Elahi and local politicians and pro-government banners were placed in all parts of the city.
UC nazims, however, failed to bring the people to the meeting and not even a single vehicle crammed with people was seen on roads. There were about 8,000 chairs at the gathering place and one-third of them remained empty.
There are 129 union councils in Multan and if each union nazim could bring 100 people to the gathering, it could have become a good show. The main participants at the meeting were government employees who were bound to attend the meeting.
Women teachers were in miserable condition as they complained about their “forced attendance” at the meeting.
Police baton-charged the public when Tahir Rasheed entered the gathering place along with his companions and tried to sit in front of the stage.
Bottled water was available only for those who were sitting at the stage while for other people water was available outside the meeting place. There were insufficient arrangements to save the participants from summer heat and people started to leave the gathering place before the conclusion of the meeting.
