Additional Chief Secretary south Punjab Captain (Retired) Saqib Zafar said on Tuesday that United Nations Development Programme was busy compiling data with the help of the Planning and Development Board Punjab to carve out a regional plan for sustainable development in south Punjab that can lay the foundation for lifting people out of poverty and infrastructure development.
Saqib Zafar was speaking at a workshop organized in collaboration with South Punjab secretariat, UNDP Pakistan and south Punjab Development Forum, aimed at moving forward with the dialogue among stakeholders, policymakers, industry leaders, civil society and government functionaries to pace up development in the underdeveloped south Punjab, composed of three divisions comprising 11 districts.
The administrative secretaries of different departments of south Punjab, economic experts, and stakeholders participated. He identified agriculture and livestock as the strengths of south Punjab that can be rejuvenated through a robust process of modernization. He said that Covid-19 and floods had crippled the livelihoods across south Punjab and there was need to lift people out of this shock impact. He said that the whole exercise was aimed at finalizing a regional development plan, which he added, would be ready soon and would hopefully enter the execution stage in the next two months.
He said, since the development funds allocated for south Punjab cannot be moved anywhere else, the institutions engaged in infrastructural uplift needed enhanced capacity to extract maximum benefits out of the opportunity for the greater good of the people. He recalled that a ‘Deep Dive’ conference involving international financial institutions.
