NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani said on Thursday that provincial government had chalked out a comprehensive plan to reorganise and restructure the SHYDO for its institutional strengthening and capacity building.
"We have leased out seven of nine hydel plants to private sector and will lease out the remaining two in future," he said while addressing as chief guest at the inaugural session of two-day NWFP Development Forum here at a local hotel.
The inaugural session was attended besides others by Minister of State for Finance Umar Ayub Khan, Senior Minister NWFP Sirajul Haq, Health Minister Inayatullah, MNAs, MPAs, Nazims, officials of central and provincial governments, foreign investors, donor agencies and industrialists.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that leasing out of those plants should be seen as one of the steps to involve private sector more deeply in hydel sector. In order to take maximum advantage of the hydel potential in NWFP, he said the government was looking at alternative routes to develop hydel sector to its full potential.
To adopt a demand driven approach for technical and vocational training institutes whereby skilled labour needs of private sector are met, the Chief Minister said the government was planning private sector's representation on the boards of such institutions.
Durrani said the government had restructured Sarhad Development Authority to act as secretariat and investment facilitator aiming at fostering an enable environment for transfer of management of industrial estates to the private sector. He said that MMA government had set up Management Committees for industrial estates, which were headed by private sector representatives.
About privatisation initiatives, the Chief Minister said a Provincial Privatisation Board had been constituted which was utilising services of private sector professionals on need basis.
He said the provincial government had started reducing its share holding in the Bank of Khyber and that had reduced to 65 per cent. "We plan to off load government share in the Bank to further reduce the government share's holding up to 51 per cent."
About the mining sector potential in the province, the Chief Minister said the government had initiated reforms to improve working in that sector by integrating three existing mineral related departments. The aim was to provide one-window facility to attract and facilitate national and the overseas investment in the mineral sector.
"We are planning to introduce investment friendly regulatory regimes by appropriately modifying mining concession rules to facilitate and promote investment in mineral sector in frontier," he said.
He further said that new Mining Concession Rules were now in place, which covers wide range of issues pertaining to various types of licenses and issuance of licenses for both large scale and small-scale mining purposes.
About Agricultural growth in NWFP, the government has considered an Agricultural Policy for uplift of economy and reducing poverty in the province, he added.
In order to achieve fruits of the policy, he said an effective monitoring system in the form of a committee under Minister for Agriculture had been set up to generate employment in the province.
Durrani said the government had initiated steps to establish an autonomous agriculture research system saying that linkages between the agriculture research and extension would be further strengthened with the needs and trends of the market.
He said the government would help develop varieties of certain high value horticulture tailored to specific backward areas and districts besides promoting private milk processing plants.
"We will help the private sector to establish milk producers associations and horticultural co-group of producers, processors and traders at the province level," he said and added that extensive network of farm services centres were to be established and made fully operational.
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