The caretaker Chief Minister Syed Arshad Hussain Shah on Monday appreciated all institutions for conducting free, fair and peaceful elections in the province. Addressing a press conference regarding the performance of his government, he said that when he assumed charge of the chief minister’s office, there was no money in the provincial kitty even for payment of salaries to the government em-ployees.
He said that in a very short period, the interim gov-ernment managed funds and now there were 100 billion rupees in the empty treasury, adding that the Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwaar ul Haq Kakar showed great compassion due to which the provin-cial government has left a surplus budget of 62 bil-lion. He said that the caretaker government did not take any loans, but rather managed to get an addi-tional 20 billion rupees from the federal government in the form of the NFC award. Arshad Hussain fur-ther mentioned that Rs 20 billion was received un-der the head of net hydel profit instead of 12 billion rupees.
The government gave admissions to as many as 33,000 students across the province, while devel-opment projects worth 190 billion rupees were ap-proved by ECNEC. The CM said that the govern-ment also managed to get the due rights of the prov-ince on gas under Article 158 of the Constitution. Similarly, industrial zones were established in vari-ous districts for industrial development in the prov-ince, he said and claimed that an investment of RS 50 billion was expected from these industrial zones besides generating employment opportunities for 70,000 people in the province.
The CM said that the establishment of two medical colleges in the province was approved while an agreement was signed with Google to train 20,000 KP youth at its own expense. Similarly, an agree-ment with the British Council was in the final stages to provide scholarships to 10,000 students, said the Chief Minister.—APP
