Senate body to write letter to PM for deciding PTDC's ownership

The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat will write a letter to the Prime Minister for deciding the ownership of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) and providing facilities to the tourists for promotion of tourism in the country.
The committee met here with Senator Muhammad Talha Mahmood in the chair at the Parliament Lodges on Tuesday wherein it discussed the issues with regard to the status of PTDC and tourism in the country.
The committee decided to write letters to the government of four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan for providing basic facilities of water, electricity, security, phone network, cleanliness, road and better residence to tourists for promoting local and international tourism in the country.
The committee also recommended that the government should involve private sector for providing best facilities to the tourists for development of tourism in the country.
The committee was also told that work on nine projects of the PTDC has been stopped because the federal government could not reach a decision regarding ownership of the PTDC.
An official of the Cabinet Division told the committee that the Ministry of Tourism has been devolved to the provinces, but the PTDC as a company was not handed over to the provinces.
Senator Javed Abbasi said that the provinces do not have capacity to run the Ministry of Tourism. He said that mostly central governments have tourism ministries with them in foreign countries.
An official of PTDC said that total budget of the corporation is Rs 206 million and out of the amount, Rs 188 million are being spent on salaries of employees. However, he said that the value of assets including hotels, motels and others are in billions of rupees, while the PTDC earns a profit of Rs 1.1 million last year.
Senator Hidayat Ullah said that the Law Ministry should be called to know the status of PTDC after passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
The members of the committee also proposed to establish a separate ministry for the PTDC.
The committee chairman said that Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) gave Rs 1.75 billion for construction of damaged road from Islamabad to Taxila via Khanpur Dam but it could not do so due to clash between two provinces Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regarding land. He said that after passage of six years, JICA withdrew this amount because the provinces could not resolve their issues.