PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet on Tuesday approved a Rs2.5 billion Ramazan subsidy package to ensure uninterrupted supply of edible items to the residents at subsidised rates during the upcoming month of fasting.

The cabinet met with Chief Minister Mahmood Khan in the chair. Ministers, advisers to the chief minister, and administrative secretaries attended the meeting.

Spokesman for the government Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif told reporters afterwards that 2,800 points had been established in the province to sell 20kg bag of wheat flour at the subsidised rate of Rs800 instead of the regular Rs1100 three times a day during Ramazan, while 10kg bag would be sold for Rs400.

He said the cabinet also decided to set up 123 Ramazan facilitation centres, 42 mobile utility stores, 83 sasta bazaars and 96 Ramazan dastarkhwans during the month, which would be supervised by the monitoring units headed by the respective secretaries and deputy commissioners, in order to check hoarding, price hike and shortage of essential commodities on the market.

Regularisation of more than 4,000 Rescue 1122 project employees also okayed

Barrister Saif said the cabinet approved Shuhada Package for field employees of the forest and wildlife department.

Under the compensation package, heirs of the martyred employees of BPS-3-16 will receive Rs3.3 million each, those of BS-17 employees Rs5.5 million, Rs9.9 million to BPS-18 and 19 employees and Rs11 million to BS-20 employees.

Under the compensation package, heirs of the martyred employees of BPS-3-16 will receive Rs3.3 million each, those of BPS-17 employees Rs5.5 million, those of BPS-18 and BPS-19 employees Rs9.9 million and those of BPS-20 employees Rs11 million.

The spokesman said the cabinet also approved the regularisation of more than 4,000 employees of 26 projects of Rescue 1122. It approved the tooling policy for highways.

It approved the reopening of De-radicalisation Centre, Mashal, in Malakand Division to get rid of the scourge of extremism as well as to inculcate the spirit of patriotism in those having tendency towards radicalization.

The centre, for which a supplementary grant of Rs360 million too was approved, will serve as a training and reformation platform for eradicating ‘negative tendencies among the people and will protect them from falling unintentionally in the hands of anti-state elements’.

The cabinet also approved a subsidy of 50 per cent per fertiliser bag for the major Kharif crops during the financial year 2022-23.

Barrister Saif said the cabinet allowed the transfer of two plots of eight and three kanals to the police department for establishing police stations in Loi Sam area of Bajaur district and Ambar area of Mohmand district, while the transfer of land to the relief department was approved for the establishment of Rescue 1122 stations in Dera Ismail Khan, Upper Kohistan and Bannu districts.

The cabinet approved the grant the status of sub-division to Shabqdar tehsil of Charsadda district and Baffa tehsil of Manshera district, while a supplementary grant of Rs700 million was okayed for the Pakistan-Austria Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, Haripur.

It also approved the conversion of the Swat University’s Shangla campus into a full-fledged university, University of Shangla. In addition, an adjacent unutilised building of the technical college was allowed to be given away to the university.

The forum approved 10 kanals of land in urban areas and 20 kanal of land in rural areas for the establishment of government colleges for boys and girls. It returned the case of the upgradation of administrative staff of the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, asking the varsity to take its approval from the relevant forum.

The cabinet reviewed the regularisation of project employees of Khar TMA in light of the orders of the Peshawar High Court’s Mingora Branch and recommendations of the cabinet’s sub-committee and decided to refer the matter to the Local Council Board for decision.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2022