Punjab Chief Minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has said that provincial government and district governments were the part of the same system and by maintaining excellent working relationship between them, benefits of reforms programme were being made available at the grass-roots level.
He was addressing District Nazims of the whole province here on Saturday. Punjab Law and Local Government Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, Punjab Chief Secretary Salman Siddique, Inspector General Police Zia ul Hassan Khan, Chairman Planning and Development Suleman Ghani, Senior Member Board of Revenue Safdar Javed Syed, Additional Chief Secretary Najeebullah Malik and Secretaries of concerned departments were also present.
The Chief Minister further said that in order to expedite the pace of progress in all districts, district governments would be provided Rs 22 billion in addition to the budgetary allocations.
"The PML believes in local bodies system and wants to further strengthen it. For this purpose, the PML would have to be made stronger and vibrant. About 29,000 more teachers would be recruited from January 1, 2006 for the promotion of education in the province," he added.
According to him, district governments system was very important with regard to social, political and economic sectors, as due to this system problems of the people were being resolved at the local level. The provincial government would provide guidelines to the districts for preparation of their budgets.
Just as provincial government has ensured strict financial discipline, similarly district governments should also utilise their resources in a transparent manner. Effective co-ordination was necessary for any department for performing its responsibility of service to the people.
He said that basic objective of reforms was to enhance per capita income of the people and for this purpose, provincial and district governments should give practical shape to a joint programme. A new housing project, namely Lake View City was being implemented near Shahdara Lahore over an area of 30,000 acres where foreign investment of Rs 30 billion was expected.
He said that a new social security system has been evolved with the co-operation of industrialists and Chambers under which labour colonies as well as hospitals were being set up near industrial estates.
He said that provincial government has started implementation of potable water programme under which availability of clean water would be ensured to the masses by 2007. He said that construction of large water reservoirs was a dire need for the provision of cheap electricity to the citizens and development of agriculture sector.
He said that the provincial government has undertaken survey of all districts for identifying their respective problems and a document has been compiled which would be made available to the districts so that they could solve their problems in a better manner. He stressed the need for evolving development projects, keeping in view the collective interest of the masses.