ISLAMABAD, March 17: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told the National Assembly on Wednesday that a $100 million loan announced by Pakistan for the reconstruction of Afghanistan earlier had been converted into a grant.

In a written reply to a member's question, the minister said Pakistan attached special importance to Afghanistan and wished to see it peaceful, stable and economically prosperous.

He said priority areas of this grant would be health, education, infrastructure development, training of Afghan nationals in different fields and reconstruction projects.

He said an inter-ministerial committee on reconstruction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan had been established to facilitate disbursement of the grant to Afghanistan.

The minister also informed the house that during 2002-03, an amount of $20 million was disbursed while during the current financial year, $20 million had been earmarked for reconstruction in Afghanistan, of which about $5.5 million had already been utilized.

He said that during Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali's visit to Kabul on Jan 12, Pakistan had also announced some initiatives. They included a gift of 200 trucks and 100 buses, reconstruction of Torkham-Jalalabad road to facilitate Pakistan's access to Central Asian Republics; construction of schools, a kidney hospital at Jalalabad; an artificial limb centre at Kandahar, an IT centre at Mazar-i-Sharif; rehabilitation of blocks at Kabul university, a feasibility study for the construction of Chaman-Kandahar railway link that would be ultimately connected to Kushka in Turkeministan, and installation of a radio transmitter at Kabul and a TV transmitter at Kandahar.