Spokesman Chief Minister, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shiraz Paracha on Monday said a representative delegation led by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak would soon call on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Mohammad Asif to discuss the issues of the payment of outstanding arrears under head of net-profit on hydro power and under capping of the amount at Rs 6 billion.
He said the provincial government wanted to take up the matter strongly with Federal Government and receive the outstanding amount as well as uncapping of the annual amount to the province. Talking to media here in Peshawar Press Club (PPC) on Monday, he also announced that the Chief Minister had granted financial autonomy to provincial services tribunal. He said the tribunal was earlier used to depend on the department of finance for the running of its financial matters, which was given approval in the time of need. However, he said after getting financial autonomy it would be able to utilise its funds on its own choice.
He said the provincial government had also decided to establish a mega city near Abbottabad and for that purpose it had approved the acquisition of a land of 4,000 kanals at Tamthor. The spokesman of the Chief Minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa said the proposed modern city near Abbottabad would be established on the pattern of the mega city to be established on Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway near Karnal Sher Khan Interchange. For that purpose, he said, the provincial government was making efforts for acquisition of 80,000 kanals of land. He was confident that the proposed mega city on Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway would be more modern and better than Islamabad and Bahria Town, where 0.6 million people would be settled.
Shiraz Paracha said the provincial government had decided in principle the payment of salaries to all government employees through the branches of commercial banks. He said out of 390,000 employees a majority was receiving its salaries through banks. But, still a large number of employees particularly of class-IV and police were getting their salaries in cash. The Chief Minister, he said, had ordered the payment of salaries to all government employees through banks, either through cheques or by tranche transfer.
He said for the provision of security to polio workers, the government had decided the recruitment of more volunteers and an amount of Rs 40 million had been approved in that regard for the time-being. Furthermore, he said those volunteers would also be utilised for carrying door-to-door awareness campaign against dengue fever. For the provision of security to them, he said it would be the joint responsibility of the departments of health, police and home affairs.
