SWAT: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has said that provincial government has increased budget for tourism and taken serious steps to promote the industry by developing new sites in the province.

He was addressing inauguration of work on Khpal Kor Nursing School and Health Science here on Wednesday. He also addressed the award distribution ceremony of a tournament at SPS College and passing out parade of a batch of tourism police at Mingora Police Training School.

“Our leader Imran Khan himself supervises tourism-related projects and other activities. Last year, tourism sector generated a revenue of Rs66 billion,” said the chief minister. He added that introducing tourism police would further promote the sector in the region.

He said that the economy of province could only stabilised by developing the tourism sector. He hoped that tourism police would be different from the traditional police because their job was to protect tourists and tourist places. He said that tourism could promote the soft image of the province.

Addresses passing out parade of tourism police, launches work on nursing school

The chief minister said that he was seeking rights of the province but federal government was withholding its funds. “We have started development projects in the newly-merged tribal districts as no uplift work has been carried out there in the last 70 years. The federal government had promised to provide Rs100 billion for tribal districts but only Rs5 billion has been released so far,” he added.

He said that apart from other projects, provincial government had to establish proper police stations in the tribal districts. He said that government needed to purchase modern weapons for police in tribal districts.

The chief minister said that development projects in tribal districts could not be executed without release of funds by federal government. He said that law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was deteriorated as defence minister was criticising police force.

He said that criticising police would not be tolerated as they were fighting on the frontline. “Instead of criticism, the imported government should give due funds to the people of the province. The rulers are resting in Islamabad while making fun of our sacrifices,” he added.

Earlier, the fresh batch of 173 tourism police presented a guard of honour to the chief minister, who distributed shields among the position holders.

The chief minister also laid the foundation stone of Khpal Kor Nursing School and Health Science in Sherarai area.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2023