KP cabinet decides to create new districts on merit, not political grounds

-Rakhshanda Naz appointed as KP ombudsperson for Protection of Women against Harassment at Workplaces.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Cabinet on Wednesday decided that no new district would be created on political grounds and the government would rather formulate a policy to create new administrative districts keeping ground realities and merit in view.

This was announced during a meeting of the provincial cabinet at the Civil Secretariat, Peshawar. The meeting was presided over by KP Chief Minister (CM) Mehmood Khan and attended by provincial ministers, advisors, special assistants, chief secretary, additional chief secretary, administrative secretaries and others.

During the meeting, the cabinet deliberated on various agenda items including the Urban Mass Transit (Amendment) Act 2016, hostels for working women, technical allowance for engineers, measures to improve KP’s budget by activating the Board of Revenue, liquid petroleum gas (LPG) issues in Chitral and issues of staff regularisation in Vehicle Emission Testing Stations.

KP Minister for Information Shaukat Yousafzai told the media that the annual report of the provincial ombudsman office was also presented in the meeting, after which a two-year extension in the services of contract employees of the office of provincial ombudsman was approved. It also approved Rakhshanda Naz’s appointment as KP Protection of Women against Harassment at Workplaces ombudsperson.

The appointment was approved in the light of recommendations made by a search committee constituted under the Protection against Working Women Harassment Bill 2018.

Yousafzai said that the committee had selected Rakhshanda Naz keeping in view her vast services for the rights of women.

He said that the cabinet approved Standard Operating Procedure (SoPs) for women hostels in districts Peshawar and Mardan to facilitate females. The main focus of the SoPs would be regulating the allotment procedure for the beneficiaries in the hostels.

The cabinet also approved the Urban Mass Transit (Amendment) Act 2016, under which an Urban Mobility Authority (UMA) would be set up to streamline and regulate mass transport programmes in the province while the shortage of LPG in district Chitral would be addressed on a priority basis.

Further, the cabinet decided to set up a committee to deliberate and find out a workable solution about the provision of technical allowance given to government engineers, adding that the committee would comprise representatives from the departments of law, finance and administration.

Although the issue of regularising the staff working in Vehicle Emission Testing Stations was discussed, the matter was dropped while seeking a performance report of the stations.

CM MAHMOOD KHAN TO HOLD NEXT CABINET MEETING IN DISTRICT KHYBER 

The KP CM announced to hold the next cabinet meeting in district Khyber. This would be the first meeting to be conducted in the erstwhile tribal area now merged into the KP province.

“I will give a final schedule to all the provincial ministers to visit and interact with the people of various new districts simultaneously”, he added.

The chief minister said that the implementation of the mainstreaming of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and giving relief to the people is the beginning of the priority set for the merger, adding that he be informed about the updates on the cabinet’s decisions through a tracking system.