PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Saturday announced the establishment of seven new industrial estates in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the next fiscal year.

“In the first phase, an industrial estate will be established in the Kohat-Karak boundary area for which land has already been identified, while in the next phase, another industrial estate will be set up in Malakand,” Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said while chairing the meeting of the provincial cabinet’s special budget here at the Civil Secretariat.

During the meeting, the proposed budget for financial year 2014-15 was approved.

The slogan of the next annual development programme is putting the people first.

According to a handout issued here, the chief minister told participants that the next budget would be focused on provision of economic relief to the poor people.

Chief minister says such facilities to get gas concession

“The PTI-led coalition government has been striving to eliminate corruption from its organisations and ensure supremacy of law, merit and justice in the society. Adequate legislation was done for it during the last year and it is time to strictly enforce it to the benefit of the people,” he said.

Mr Khattak said the centre had accepted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s right to use additional gas, so 300 megawatts electricity would be generated from gas to be provided to the industrial estates at concessional rates.

“It will be an incentive for local industries. Our province has literally become unfeasible for industries due to ill-conceived policies of the past governments, distance location from seaports and other geographical disadvantages. However, cheap electricity could pave way for industrialisation and economic growth here,” he said.

The chief minister said all cabinet members and administrative secretaries of the government departments would have to work round the clock to achieve developmental targets.

He directed the relevant authorities to promote tax culture in the province and achieve revenue targets in time.

The chief minister said if the people benefited from development work and welfare measures of their tax money, then they would never hesitate to pay their share of taxes and would happily discharge the national duty.

He said he was hopeful that subsidy on flour and ghee would enable the poorest segments of society to get relief from Ramazan to the end of the fiscal year.

Mr Khattak said the government’s measures would help ease the misery of the people, especially the poor ones, and it was expected that the people would need no subsidy on goods in the coming years.

He ordered the start of work on the two double track main corridors under Peshawar mass transit system from Nasirpur to Karkhano Market and on a car city in Peshawar.

The chief minister also approved the establishment of sasta bazaars at suitable places in the city and ordered the local administration to ensure availability of quality goods at reasonable rates there.

He approved the plan of uplift and beautification of all divisional headquarter cities and ordered its early execution.

Mr Khattak also issued directions for the start of work on Swat Expressway, which is to link Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway to Chakdara via Swabi, making the journey up to Swat, Dir and Chitral comfortable and less time consuming.

The meeting decided to expedite work on tree plantation besides approving the suggestion of Senior Minister Sirajul Haq to give grace marks in examinations to students planting trees and nourishing them.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2014