Amraiz Khan
Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar has approved the public-private partnership (PPP) policy and constituted a monitoring board under the P&D Department to speedily implement public welfare schemes.
The first meeting of the board was held under the chair of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar at his office in which implementation of mega projects was given approval and appointment of Dr Muhammad Junaid Ashraf was approved as director executive committee of the board, says a handout issued here on Tuesday.
Recruitment of human resources for public-private partnership policy and monitoring board was given approval along with the approval of establishment of weaving city in industrial city Faisalabad through the PPP mode.
The project would be completed with an amount of Rs 4.50 billion and Faisalabad’s power-looms industry would be shifted to weaving city.
Zero-rating tax will be implemented for the PPP mode projects and line departments would take necessary steps in this regard.
The meeting gave approval to setting up of combined effluent treatment plants in Sundar Industrial Estate and Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate Lahore with a total amount of Rs 6 billion.
The meeting also approved installation of one million water meters in Lahore with an amount of Rs 10 billion. The southern loop-III project of Lahore Ring Road was given approval which would be completed with an amount of around Rs10 billion.
The meeting approved dualisation of Chiniot-Pindi Bhattian Road along with provision of project development facility which would also be provided to Lai Expressway Project.
On the occasion, repair and maintenance projects of Gujrat-Jalalpur Jattan Road, Mianwali-Muzaffargarh Road and Faisalabad-Chiniot-Sargodha Road were approved along with the approval of schemes relating to Multan-Vehari Road, Lilla Interchange to Jhelum Road, Tirinda Pannah Muhammad Din-KLM-Head Punjnad Road, Depalpur-Okara Road, Samundari-Jhang Road and Shakargarh-Zafarwal Road.
Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that constitution of public-private partnership policy and monitoring board would help to accelerate the implementation of development schemes. “I will personally monitor the progress made on PPP mode projects,” added the chief minister.
Board Secretary Dr Farrukh Naveed gave a briefing and the meeting was told that projects worth Rs 389 billion were in the pipeline under the public-private partnership.
Provincial ministers Hashim Jawan Bakht, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Sardar Asif Nakai, Advisor Dr Salman Shah, assembly members Sajid Ahmad Khan and Mian Shafi Muhammad, Chief Secretary, Chairman P&D and others attended the meeting.
