BAHAWALPUR: The heads of local groups demanding restoration of Bahawalpur as province on Saturday announced at a press conference that they would launch a vigorous movement before the election to impress upon the rulers the need to grant Bahawalpur a status as a full-fledged province.

The groups’ coalition led by Ms Asieya Kamil, flanked by Habibullah Bhutta, Khuda Yar Channar, Yousaf Abbasi and others, narrated people’s woes and sufferings. They protested that the resources of this fertile area were being misused and successive governments had failed to make good on the promise of province restoration.

They referred to the Punjab Assembly’s unanimous resolution of 2014 on the subject. This was followed, they reminded, by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s visit and pledge to announce that his party PML-N would create Bahawalpur province.

LAND: Cholistan Development Authority chairman Malik Muhammad Iqbal Channar has assured that bonafide Cholistanis would be given land under the chief minister’s package.

At an awareness conference for the applicants on the lawns of the CDA here on Saturday, he said injustice with any deserving and eligible applicant from Cholistan could not be done. In case of any such complaint, he said, the person concerned could file an appeal before the redress committee comprising MNA Begum Parveen Masood Bhatti, former Senator Saood Majid Chaudhry and MPAs Khalid Mahmood Jajja and Islam Aslam.

He said the land would be given away through balloting.

INCENTIVES: Punjab Schools Secretary Dr Allah Bakhsh says the government’s policy to grant interest-free loans for car, motorcycle and construction of houses for the teachers across the province is on the anvil.

Addressing teachers on the opening of a modern laboratory at the Government Sadiq Girls High School here, the provincial secretary said that teachers’ children would also be given scholarships and the implementation of the government’s policy aimed at the welfare of the teachers would begin within two months.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2018