KP govt initiates process to build modern hospitals
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed the concerned authorities to start homework including identification of suitable land for the establishment of state-of-the-art hospitals at regional level in Malakand, Hazara and South regions, adding the sites of these hospitals should be easily accessible to all the districts of the regions.
He further directed the highups of health department and PESCO for necessary steps to provide power express lines to the remaining District Headquarters Hospitals of the province on priority basis, so that uninterrupted supply of power to these hospitals is ensured.
He was chairing a meeting regarding the development portfolio and public issues of Malakand region here yesterday. Besides provincial cabinet members and MPAs from Malakand Region, the meeting was attended by highups of provincial departments and federal entities.
The meeting reviewed in detail the progress on the ongoing developmental schemes in the regions whereas the elected public representatives flagged issues faced the general public in their respective constituencies and the Chief Minister issued directives to the concerned authorities to resolve those issues on priority basis further directing them to show significant progress on ground to resolve those issues in next meeting to be held a month later. Most of the issues were identified by the MPAs related to health, education, clean drinking water, irrigation, electricity and road infrastructure.
On this occasion, the elected representatives pointed out deficiencies of engineers and other technical staff of works departments in their constituencies.
The chief minister directed the concerned authorities to convene a special meeting of all the highups of all works departments, Revenue Department and Public Service Commission for a way forward to hire these technical staff of works departments in a speedy pace.
The chief minister also directed the highups of health department to take necessary measures for upgradation of hospitals in the region.
Talking on the occasion, the Chief Minister stated that the provincial government was working on various projects for revamping and strengthening of all the Basic Health Units and Rural Health Centres.
Similarly, a scheme is also being executed to provide all the required medical equipments to tehsil and district headquarter hospitals of the province adding that with the completion of these schemes, healthcare facilities in the province would be strengthened.
Some of the MPAs raised the issue of non-availability of clean drinking water in some areas in their constituency to which the chair directed the Public Health Engineering Department to carry out feasibility studies for water supply schemes in those areas.
Regarding to the issues related to road infrastructure projects as identified by the elected representatives, the chief minister directed the authorities concerned to submit a monitoring & evaluation report on all the ongoing projects of roads and bridges in the region.
Briefing the meeting about the developmental portfolio of various districts of the region, it was informed that 28 different schemes with a total cost of Rs4 billion have been reflected in the Annual Development Program (ADP) for district Malakand, 46 schemes worth Rs8 billion for district Buner, 28 schemes worth Rs3 billion for district Shangla, 35 schemes worth Rs6 billion for district Chitral, 46 schemes worth Rs11.5 billion for Dir Lower and 40 schemes with a total cost of Rs12 billion reflected in the ADP for district Upper Dir.
The Chief Minister termed the timely completion of the ongoing developmental schemes as the top priority of his government and directed the Planning Department to give priority to the completion of ongoing schemes in the release of funds.