LAHORE: Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while presiding over a meeting to review progress on public welfare projects, has said that his government’s development programme was equitably benefiting urban and rural areas of the province.
He said the government would spend Rs100 billion for promotion of the agriculture and livestock sectors in the next two years. “It is the government’s responsibility to solve the farming community’s problems. Revolutionary measures will be taken for development of agriculture sector,” he said.
Shehbaz Sharif said projects costing billions of rupees were being carried out for prosperity of the rural areas. He said development funds allocated to the southern districts were 10 per cent higher than those allocated to the rest of the province.
Sharif said work on the Khadim-i-Punjab Rural Roads Programme and Saaf Pani Project had started and that Rs200 billion would be released for the two projects in the next two years. He said provision of clean drinking water was a priority of the government. Accessibility of potable water in all rural areas of the province would be ensured in the next two years, he added. He said the government was committed to further improving education, health and other social sector indicators. There would be no compromise on work on uplift of these sectors.
The chief minister said agriculture and livestock sectors played an important role in stability of the economy. He asked officials concerned to pay attention to projects through which prosperity of cultivators and solution to their problems could be ensured.
Sharif said the government was also committed to arranging vocational training opportunities for the unemployed youth in the province. He said the youth would be equipped with employable skills through these programmes.
Sharif said it would be ensured that development projects designed for the next fiscal year benefited maximum possible people. He said ensuring welfare of the common man and speedy completion of development works was on top of the PML-N government’s agenda. He said transparency in expenditure of funds and timely completion of works was a hallmark of the PML-N government.
Provincial Ministers Rana Sanaullah, Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, MNA Hamza Shehbaz, the chief secretary, the Planning and Development Board chairman and the finance secretary attended the meeting.
