Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Saturday that poverty and unemployment had increased in the country due to corruption and wrong policies of the government.
The CM was talking to reporters at the inauguration ceremony of a three-day polio campaign in the province. Member National Assembly (MNA) Hanif Abbasi, World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Dr Debra Betal, UNICEF representatives, health secretary, Health Services director general and Health Department officials were also present on the occasion.
Shahbaz Sharif said that polio had been eliminated in most countries of the world but unfortunately, it continued to exist in Pakistan. He said that Punjab government was making efforts for complete eradication of polio in the province. He asked all stakeholders and civil society members to help the government in achieving the target of 100 percent elimination of polio. The chief minister said further that besides polio, the elimination of corruption was essential as it had led to crises of gas and electricity, causing industries to close down and labourers becoming jobless. He said that vast reserves of coal were available in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan. He said that had a policy evolved in consultation with industrialists, investors and experts for generating energy from coal and 3,500 Mega Watt of electricity would be produced from coal.
Answering a question regarding the deaths caused by PIC medicines, the CM said that investigations of the incident were being conducted in a transparent manner and the findings would be shared with the people and the responsible would be awarded deterrent punishment. Earlier, the CM inaugurated a three-day polio campaign by administrating drops of polio vaccine to the children. The campaign will continue from January 30 to February 01, 2012. The Health Department officials informed that 38,000 teams, including 32,000 mobile teams, had been constituted to administer police vaccine to over 16 million children.
Meanwhile, presiding over a meeting on the provision of transport facilities to the people at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Saturday, the CM said that uninterrupted provision of CNG to transporters will provide relief to the people.
He directed the concerned divisional commissioner to evolve a strategy in consultation with the Lahore Transport Company (LTC) regarding plying of CNG buses in their respective divisions so that on arrival, the CNG buses could immediately be plied. He said that that the Bus Rapid Transit system would be extended to Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad, after Lahore. He said that the project would start in Lahore soon and the 27-kilometre road section from Gajomata to Shahdara will be completed in the first phase for which a six-member team of Turkish experts would visit Lahore soon. The CM also directed to constitute a team, headed by the Planning and Development chairman, which will review and approve the estimated cost of the Bus Rapid Transit project.
