LAHORE, June 10: The Lahore city district government has declared buildings of 164 schools controlled by it as dangerous and decided to merge them with other schools.

This transpired at a meeting of the DCOs and EDOs (education) held here on Monday with Governor Khalid Maqbool in chair. The meeting was attended by DCOs and EDO (education) from 34 districts of the province.

The meeting was informed that the city government had already completed development of 320 schools under the Khushhal Pakistan Programme (KPP).

The governor, according to officials, asked the officials concerned to improve the examination system, undertake programme for training teachers, and provide buildings for shelterless schools under the province’s annual development programme (ADP), Social Action Programme and the KPP.

The meeting also reviewed the progress made so far under these three programmes. It was told that up to May 30, most districts had utilized 60-80 per cent of funds. The governor directed the districts to increase their utilization percentage to 90 per cent by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

The officials were also directed to monitor the quality of construction of school buildings. The government, governor Maqbool said, would not compromise on the quality of work done.

The governor also approved a scheme to construct a postgraduate block for both boys and girls at 32 kanals of land available adjacent to the Government Degree College for Boys at Toba Tek Singh.

The governor directed the DCOs to establish the writ of the government and stop water theft in the rural areas to support small farmers. He instructed the tehsils to use the KPP funds available with them for initiating water supply, drainage, soling and brick lining of water channels.

He declared that Rs100 million each provided to the local governments of the drought hit areas in the province would be treated as nonlapsable amounts. He said he had distributed Rs1.5 billion to the districts for development under his special directives during the last six months.