BAHAWALPUR, Jan 19: Punjab chief secretary Javed Mehmood has expressed his dissatisfaction with performance of the police in the province.

Talking to media men at commissioner’s office here on Monday, the CS said he got this impression after his surprise inspection of Yazman police station last night. “In my opinion, police force does not want to control the rising crimes.”

He told a questioner that the Punjab government was taking measures to ensure basic amenities, particularly proper functioning of sewerage system and provision of potable water, to the masses across the province.

In this connection, he referred to the launch of South Punjab project worth over Rs6 billion and said its progress was being monitored by the government.

The chief secretary said children of deserving families registered under the food support programme would be provided with opportunities for higher education. Teachers of model schools to be opened in selected tehsils would be given better salaries. He said computer laboratories would be established in each boys and girls schools in the province.

He told a questioner that the government was not interfering in the district government system. He also took notice of the operation of a female patient with the help of an emergency light on Saturday during unscheduled outages at the Bahawal Victoria Hospital, the generator of which was lying out of order. He was also told about the use of expired medicines by the district health department here.

He held out an assurance that the fertiliser crisis would soon be overcome by streamlining the distribution of the imported urea.

The CS opined that it was officers’ responsibility to come out of their offices to redress the grievances of commoners.

“For this purpose, I myself and 17 other secretaries will visit each of tehsil headquarters to acquaint ourselves with their problems.”

After a detailed briefing on uplift projects and local problems by divisional commissioner Muhammad Mushtaq Ahmed, the chief secretary sanctioned a sum of about Rs150 million for Bahawalnagar city roads, Rs120 million for dualisation of road from Milad Chowk to general bus stand, Bahawalpur, and Rs25 million for Unilever Road, Rahim Yar Khan.