The Provincial Minster for Local Government and Rural Development, Inyatullah, in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has said that the government is working on a master plan to develop the city of Peshawar, the KP provincial capital. The plan will be finalized soon, he said, while talking at the Guest Hour Program arranged by the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, August 2013.
The promise was reiterated by Pervez Khattak, chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, who said, “We want to develop Peshawar at all costs because it is a provincial metropolis that was ignored by the previous government.”
Javed Khan, chief planning officer working on the development program told Truth Tracker that progress had been made on the plan and that consultants and expert firms were being hired to do different development projects.
Among the development schemes, he said, was a mass transit plan for Peshawar. He said that the KP government would soon inaugurate a number of projects costing Rs. 4.7 billion.
These include repaving roads, building an overpass costing Rs. 600 million on Charsadda Road, creating and maintaining parks, preserving the city’s rich Gandhara heritage, and provision of clean drinking water. Another project - a Rs.17 billion project to repair and expand a 17 kilometer road linking the Grand Trunk Road with Jamrud Road - would be also initiated soon, Javed Khan told Truth Tracker.
“All these projects are in the preliminary feasibility stage,” said Khan. “No specified time can be given for the execution or completion of these development schemes.”
Peshawar is the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The city population has exceeded 2.5 million due to the huge influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from tribal areas during the post-September 11 conflict and of Afghan refugees over three decades. However, experts are of the view that the rapid increase in population and ill-planned construction in and around the provincial capital are the main sources of a plethora of civic and health problems.
Lubna Tajik, provincial coordinator of the United Nations Population Fund, told Truth Tracker that it is a matter of great concern that the government did not formulate a comprehensive strategy to respond to the needs of a growing population.
“A growing population has strong effects on the development of the economy and the society because of changes in labor supply, family structure, education and health management system,” she said.
“Designing master plan for Peshawar’s uplift will be technical and it needs authentic research, data and transparent implementation,” said Tajik.
She said there was lack of technical research, as even a national census had not been carried out since 1998 and all urban projects were designed on the basis of this old census.
Ghulam Ali, senator and former district Nazim of Peshawar, said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had failed to develop Peshawar city. He said that the PTI government made only hollow pledges, making announcements that never saw the light of day.
“No practical work can be seen on ground in these eight months of PTI government,” Ghulam Ali told Truth Tracker.
The said the Clean and Green Peshawar project had failed badly. “Millions were spent on this project but the people got no relief,” said Ghulam Ali.
He criticized the PTI government’s “poor performance” saying it had completed almost eight months in government but there is little to show for it. He said that, due to the poor security situation in Peshawar, incidents of kidnapping for ransom had increased to an alarming proportion. “Kidnapping of doctors and businessmen has become a routine matter.”
About local government elections in the province, he said that the PTI government had made promises to the people that they would conduct local bodies’ elections in the first few months of coming to power but that they had failed to do that.
About the development initiatives in the province, he said that the PTI government wasn’t serious because it told the people that after the local bodies’ elections, it would spend the money allocated for development through local leadership. He said no work was being done on several development initiatives started in the city.
In light of the background information and independent views, Truth Tracker’s verdict is that that the PTI government has only been in power for ten months. More time is needed to observe the government’s progress on executing the master plan for developing Peshawar.
I did my master in journalism and Mass Communication from university of Peshawar in 2006. I have a vast experience in humanitarian reporting. I have have worked in different national and international news organizations as producer and reporter.Presently I am working with Center for Research and Security Studies as reporter from southern areas of KP.
March 24, 2014
March 19, 2014
March 18, 2014
March 14, 2014
|