Tariq Saeed Peshawar
The Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mehmood Khan on Friday accused the federal government of sabotaging the ongoing development process in KP by withholding the rights of the province which, he said, was an undemocratic behavior and blatant injustice with the people of the province especially the newly merged districts.
Addressing a meeting of the elected public representatives from the newly merged districts here at Chief Minister house Mehmood Khan termed the merger of erstwhile FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a turning point in the development and prosperity of the tribal people adding the PTI provincial government as per its commitment has left no stone unturned for the development and rehabilitation of the merged districts.
The Chief Minister regretted that the federal government has gone all out to sabotage the development process in the province. He said PDM coalition government has withheld the legitimate rights of the province saying if the “imported rulers” were not willing or incapable to work for the development of merged areas, they should refrain from creating obstacles for the provincial government, he concluded.
“The indifferent attitude of the incumbent Federal Government is a matter of grave concern. Unfortunately out of the development budget of Rs. 55 billion for the merged districts, only Rs. 5 billion has been provided so far whereas out of the current budget of Rs. 85 billion, only 60 billion has been released”. Chief Minister KP lamented.
Addressing the participants, the Chief Minister said that the provincial government has successfully completed the merger process despite numerous challenges. “In most of the merged districts, the provincial government had to start from zero because no attention was paid to the development of these areas in the past”, he said and added that a new era of development has been started in the merged districts by introducing special development programs for redressing the decades-long deprivations of the tribal people.
Chief Minister said that the PTI provincial government has taken concrete steps to bring the people of the newly merged districts into mainstream adding that after the merger of erstwhile FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, provincial departments have been extended to the newly merged districts and a special development program has been initiated with the sole purpose to address their longstanding deprivations.
He said the incumbent provincial government, during the last four years, has taken multiple steps resulting in significant improvement in the overall Services Delivery System. Despite multiple challenges, the provincial government has proved that it is not only committed to the development and prosperity of tribal districts but has gone beyond its capacity for this purpose. Absorption of Levies and Khasadars into regular police, regularization of ex-FATA project employees and provision of medical equipment and emergency medicine are among the important initiatives completed by his government.
