LAHORE – Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that the revolutionary programmes initiated by the PML-N government for the youth are yielding positive results and lakhs of poor, talented, intelligent and unemployed youth are benefitting from these plans.
Presiding over a high-level meeting on Sunday, the chief minister said the Punjab government was making its best efforts to ensure that youth were given their due right through these programmes. He said such programmes as green tractors scheme, laptops, self-employment scheme, buses for colleges, solar panels and bio-gas pilot project had been initiated during the current year.
“The young generation has been given a new identity through youth programmes and talented and intelligent youth are being given equal opportunities of progress so that no youth should lag behind in education sector due to paucity of resources”, the chief minister held.
Shahbaz Sharif also issued instructions to accelerate the pace of implementation of youth programmes, worth billions of rupees, and directed the concerned authorities to ensure early implementation of these programmes.
He said 20 thousands tractors would be given under Green Tractor Scheme, worth four billion rupees, and a subsidy of two lakh rupees would be given on each tractor. He said the balloting process for this scheme would be computerised and transparent. He said assembly members and government servants were not eligible to apply.
The secretary agriculture informed the chief minister that August 31 had been fixed as the last date for submission of applications and more than 14 thousand applications had been received so far.
The chief minister directed that manufacturing companies should be contacted for the timely supply of tractors and ownership letters should be given to the applicants who proved successful in balloting. He said process of distribution of laser levellers was also been started from the next month which would benefit the cultivators.
Shahbaz Sharif said the process of distribution of more than one lakh laptops among boy and girl students was also being started and the students of evening classes would also be given laptops. He directed authorities concerned that the laptops should be of the latest model and the boy and girl students of seminaries and vocational institutions should also be included in the scheme.
“Solar home panels will be provided at a huge cost of two billion rupees while sewing machines will be distributed among the skilled women with a sum of Rs one billion”, the chief minister announced. He said that bio-gas pilot project would also start operating in near future.
He said 200 new buses were being provided to the colleges in the province and the provision of buses would be started from October.