PESHAWAR, Jan 25: NWFP Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah on Tuesday expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of work on the Ghallanai grid station in the Mohmand Agency and said that since the entire cost had been paid to the Peshawar Electric Supply Company, the project must not be delayed further.

At a meeting which reviewed the Annual Developmental Programme, the governor underlined the need for a regular monitoring mechanism for the development projects in the Mohmand Agency.

The governor was informed that development targets set for the first six months of the current ADP had been achieved. According to a handout issued later, Rs185.9 million released against Rs370 million had been utilized.

At a presentation held on the mid-year review of the Mohmand Agency's ADP, Political Agent Sahibzada Mohmand Anees spoke about the expenditure incurred on development schemes in the health, education, public health engineering, communication, power and agriculture sectors.

He also mentioned the development process carried out under special packages for Ambar, Baizai and Khoezai areas of the agency. The meeting noted that out of the approved cost (Rs219 million) of all the three packages, Rs53.6 million had been utilized under the Khoezai package, Rs72 million under the Ambar Package and Rs10.1 million under the Baizai package.

Mr Anees said that a number of projects in the target areas had been completed in the communication, health, education, power, agriculture and forest sectors. The meeting was informed that 96 development schemes in different sectors - 83 ongoing and 13 new - were being executed in the agency.

The NWFP governor described the overall pace of development in the Mohmand Agency as satisfactory but showed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of work on the Ghallanai grid station.

He asked the officials to ensure timely utilization of the earmarked funds in the education and health sectors. He called for a township scheme in every agency. Modern irrigation technique, particularly the drip irrigation, should be applied to boost agriculture production, he said.