The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday extended Traditional Hunarmand Rozgar Scheme (THRS) to eight more districts of the province. KP Minister for Culture and Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussein was the chief guest at the occasion. Secretary Culture and Information Azmat Hanif Orakzai and Director Culture, Pervez Khan Sabit Khel, were also present on the occasion.
The new districts to which the scheme has been extended included Swat, Dir Lower, Chitral, Dera Ismail Khan, Mardan, Swabi, Abbottabad and Haripur beside Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera. The number of skills to be supported has also been enhanced from 10 to 23 and the amount allocated for this purpose has also been increased to Rs 300 million.
The newly included skills include; hairdresser, beautification, tailor, handicrafts, wax-printing, calligraphy, dry-clean, music instruments making, traditional foods, ring making, "kuddi" copper work, "misgari" and stone-carving etc. Mian Iftikhar Hussein said that skilled workers of the said districts would be given loan ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 0.1 million, which would be returned in easy instalments of three years. The first three months would be treated as grace period.
He said that application forms could be obtained from the branches of Bank of Khyber. It can also be downloaded from www.bok.com.pk. Photostat of the forms would also be acceptable. The last date for acceptance of application forms are up to February 28, 2013.