Keeping in view the country’s financial constrains, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Saturday asked the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) chief minister of and his cabinet members to prepare a comprehensive plan for development with a futuristic vision to lead GB to self-sufficiency.
Talking to GB Chief Minister Mehdi Shah and his ministers at the PM’s House, Gilani emphasised on preparing policies to help create economic opportunities and generate economic activities. The objective of according autonomy the GB region was to ensure good governance and welfare of the people, he said, adding that the region had tremendous potential for tourism, both for foreign and local tourists.
He asked the government of GB to devise a strategy to promote tourism and develop self-sustaining facilities for the tourists. He drew the attention of the participants towards the Agha Khan Foundation who had expressed interest in the development of the region. He asked the GB government to extend facilities in this context. The prime minister said that he would visit Gilgit-Baltistan soon to see for himself the status of implementation of his earlier directives and announcements.
He further directed the Ministry of Communications to speed up the work on Gilgit-Baltistan-AJK link road to facilitate travel and trade between the two regions.
He also asked the government of Gilgit-Baltistan to prepare PC-I for improving the drainage system of Gilgit in the first phase and Skardu in the second. Gilani further assured the GB chief minister that like FATA and AJK, the government would extend every possible assistance to GB through the PSDP, as and when possible.
He asked the chief minister to make necessary preparations in consultation with the relevant quarters for payment of compensation to people affected by the Diamer-Bhasha dam and their resettlement.
Earlier, the GB chief minister and his ministers informed the prime minister of the challenges they were facing after implementation of the Empowerment Act.
Thanking the government of Pakistan for giving voice to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan through the Empowerment Act, they sought the prime minister’s guidance and support for rebuilding the governance infrastructures in accordance with the needs. They also apprised the prime minister that the announcements and commitments made to the government and people of Gilgit-Baltistan had not yet been fully implemented and required his intervention.
The Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Affairs secretary informed the meeting that most of the announcements and commitments made by the government of Pakistan hd been fulfilled to quite an extent.
He said proper planning and capacity building of the officials in various institutions in Gilgit-Baltistan would help in accelerating the pace of development and progress. He referred to the package of incentives recently announced by the prime minister for posting officers of the government of Pakistan to Gilgit-Baltistan, which he said, would help strengthen the administrative structure of the region.
The secretary also said the government of Gilgit-Baltistan needed to prepare PC-Is for the 1,300 development schemes and also select qualified persons for the 1,781 posts being created for the region under the Empowerment Act.
