KARAK: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Thursday that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had put the country on the path of development according to the vision of the party’s supreme leader, Nawaz Sharif.

Speaking at a ceremony after inaugurating a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plant in Nashpa area of Karak district, he expressed the hope that the PML-N would win the next general election.

Talking about the political situation in the country, he said in the next elections people would have to decide that whether they would vote for those who used abusive language or those who believed in decent politics.

Earlier, the prime minister inaugurated the gas plant which, he said, was completed with a cost of Rs20 billion. He said the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) would receive an annual income of Rs60bn from the project which would produce 400 tonnes of LPG daily.

Mr Abbasi said the federal government had paid Rs42bn to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government as royalty for oil and gas produced from the province.

He announced that the federal government would provide the KP government half of the amount of the project for providing gas to the people of Karak.

The prime minister said that when the PML-N came to power in 2013 the total volume of gas produced in the country was 1,000 tonnes, which had now been increased to 1,800 tonnes.

He claimed that in 2013 the country had only 500-kilometre motorways and those too were built during the previous tenure of the party’s government. And now the country has 1,700-kilometre motorways.

Similarly, he said, at the time when the PML-N came to power the country experienced about 16 hours of loadshedding daily. Now the country was producing surplus electricity and loadshedding was carried out only in those areas where there were huge line losses, he added.

Mr Abbasi appreciated the performance of the OGDCL and Pakistan Pet­roleum Limited, claiming that both organisations were included in the best performing companies of the world. He announced a one-month salary bonus for the employees of OGDCL.

He announced that gas connections would be provided to people living in five-kilometre radius of gas fields.

He said Karak district would to be linked to the Chine-Pakistan Economic Corridor via Shakardara. He said the projects of Banda Daud Shah road and Tall road would be handed over to the National Highway Authority for their early completion.

The prime minister app­roved a women university campus in Karak and urged the OGDCL to establish a modal educational institution in the area. He announced health cards for the poor people of Karak.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2018