PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has agreed to The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) support to the up gradation of different facilities in three districts of the province.
These three districts include Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad, where social services would be upgraded and the whole up-gradation process would be shared by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
He was presiding over a meeting, at the Chief Minister Secretariat Peshawar, on the Integrity Development Strategy for the Inclusive Urban Growth Programme and the ADB assistance for clean drinking water facilities, solid waste management and waste water treatment and disposal; the establishment of community mobilization unit; training and technical assistance and participatory planning; training on waste reduction behaviours, and customers’ willingness to pay for the institutional reforms.
The participants included Local Government Minister Inayatullah, Additional Chief Secretary Azam Khan, administrative secretaries, DCs Mardan, Abbottabad, Peshawar District Mayor Arbab Asim, and high-ups of concerned departments.
The CDIA would focus on the infrastructure, investment, project implementation and its operational maintenance. The participants were also briefed about the working of the CDIA, its planning for operationalisation and its integrated development strategy, directly linking infrastructure investment with measurable, social, environmental benefits.
The meeting was also briefed about the interactions at social, community, local and provincial levels.
Under the Inclusive Urban Growth Programme, the total need for Abbottabad is 121 million US dollars, 121 million US dollars for Mardan and 294 million US dollars for Peshawar allocated to water supply, solid waste, sewerage and transport.
The project cost of 128 million dollars in phase-1 will be jointly shared: 100 million dollars by ADB and 28 million dollars by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
The presentation also focused on the need driven creation of facilities in social sectors; the capacity building of the operational staff; the plan for the implementation of the project and its sustainability with focus on the behaviour change.
CM Khattak while agreeing to the original concept of the project, directed to go the whole hog for the preliminary spade work, including the original frame of the project, its budgetary requirements and planning the implementation stage.
He directed the P&D department to move ahead, negotiate the project at concerned forums as he has already given a green signal to the project. He asked the local government and the district government to coordinate with each other on the project’s implementation.