KOHAT, Jan 19: The members of councillors’ alliance have demanded of the government to include Kohat district in the food programme in the primary schools so that a large number of poor children could benefit from the facility.

In a statement issued here on Saturday they said that soon children in all government primary schools would be provided free lunch to encourage parents to send their children to school.

They lamented that Kohat district had been exempted on the pretext that poverty rate was much low here and the people could not afford to educate their children, whereas this was not the case.

They added that majority of the students in the outskirts belonged to very poor families who could not afford to pay tuition fee, therefore, the free food programme facility should also be extended to Kohat.

The members of the alliance, Haji Aziz Ullah, Ameer Khan Afridi, Zakir Ali Shah Banoori and Taj Mohammad Khan in their joint press statement appealed to the provincial minister for education who hailed from Kohat to include Kohat schools in the programme and help the poor.