PESHAWAR - Chief Minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak on Saturday said majority of the agreements on projects related to Pak-China Economic Corridor had been finalised, which would usher in a new era of development and prosperity in the province to help generate employment opportunities for thousands of people.

The chief minister was addressing public meetings at Wazir Ghari and Khan Sher Ghari areas of tehsil Pabbi, district Nowshera. Khattak said he had fruitful meetings with senior officials in the federal ministry of planning and development with Federal Minister Ehsan Iqbal in the chair, wherein outcomes of the meetings in Beijing, China were reviewed in detail regarding China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

He said the projects including Gilgit-Dir-Chitral Road, feasibility study for developing a fast railway track connecting Peshawar, Charssadda, Nowshera, Swabi and Mardan as well as projects to generate 1700 megawatts of hydro-power were discussed in details. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government would prepare concept papers of the mentioned projects by April 2017, he said. The Chinese investors have expressed their willingness to work with KP government on more such projects and in this regard various agreements have recently been inked in the presence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan with Chinese companies, the chief minister said.

These projects also include construction of Industrial Estate at Rashakai, Nowshera on a 40,000 kanals of land, Khattak said, adding that the Chinese investors were interested to invest in the proposed industrial estates in D.I. Khan, Jalozai and Rashakai.

The industrial estates are being shifted to this part of the country due to cheap labour. Pakistani investors could also invest in these estates which would be constructed by Chinese themselves. The industrial estates would provide employment opportunities to induct thousands of people as unemployment could not be overcome through government jobs. Unemployment could only be addressed by industrial revolution, Khattak elaborated.

Khattak further said senior provincial minister and finance minister were attending National Finance Commission (NFC) award meetings. He said no agreement had yet been finalised in connection with the upcoming NFC award. However, the government would protect rights of the province in the NFC award, he assured.

Khattak claimed that PTI was engaged with battle against corrupt mafia, injustices and corruption. We are for the change of the system come what may, he said, adding the journey of change would continue more vigorously in the days to come. People were fed up with the corrupt system of the previous regimes as there was no merit and justice, he said.

The chief minister informed that shortage of school teachers had almost been controlled as 30 thousands teachers had been inducted while 15 thousand more teachers would be hired in the current year. He said the government wanted to improve system of education in government schools so that poor people could also become stakeholders in decision making process.

We made the doctors duty bound to attend hospitals and provide better medical facilities to the patients. We enacted legislations to provide better healthcare facilities in government hospitals and recruited scores of doctors besides considerably increasing their salaries. We banned private practice of doctors and started institute-based clinic system, he added.

We launched ‘Sehat Insaaf Card’ under which 1.8 million deserving families would be provided Rs0.3million to Rs0.5million free of cost medication facilities. We are making investment on human development, the chief minister claimed.