PESHAWAR - Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has ordered a ban over manufacturing and use of polythene shopping bags that causes choking of sanitation system and environmental degradation.
The ban will be implemented after two months and during this period all stock of the plastic bags would be removed from markets and the factories. He also ordered launching of an active drive for checking substandard food items and directed the concerned authorities to involve elected local councillors and local community members in the checking process.
Issuing orders for solving problems of PK-3, Peshawar during meeting of a 25-member delegation from the constituency, the chief minister asked WAPDA to remove electric poles and other WAPDA installations from the retrieved lands during the anti-encroachment drive in the interior city by 20th August next. He also ordered to complete electrification schemes of 34 public health tube wells of Peshawar for which KP government had already disbursed funds to WAPDA.
The delegation, led by Gul Bacha Khan, called on the Chief Minister Pervez Khattak at CM House on Monday. The MPA, Yasin Khalil, Member District Council, Younis Zaheer, and relevant officers of the district administration, police, WAPDA and the provincial government departments were also present.
In response to the problems and demands presented by the delegation, Pervez Khattak directed the PESCO authorities to prepare weekly schedule of the power load shedding for Peshawar and inform in advance to the local administration about power outages.
He also stressed WAPDA to ensure early replacement of defected power transformers and summoned a meeting of PESCO and WAPDA as well as the provincial energy department to discuss the issues of repair and replacement of faulty transformers, provision of electricity to water supply schemes, availability of transformers in emergency, anti-power stealing measures and such other matters related to PESCO.
Offering repair of the out-of-order transformers at the expense of the provincial government, Pervez Khattak said that all electricity related problems could be solved by mutual cooperation between the provincial government and WAPDA.
Directing the concerned authority to make WSSP fully functional and active in PK-3 for solving the problems of water supply, cleanliness and sanitation, he made it clear that cleanliness in rural areas of the province would be included in priorities of newly elected neighbourhood councils who would carry out this function in collaboration with tehsil councils, he added.
The chief minister said that he was fully aware of all the problems of Peshawar and while directing the municipal administration to get the state land in Wazir Bagh and Khushal Bazar free from illegal occupants, he warned that any effort for grabbing the state land would not be tolerated. He told that service roads would be established on both sides of the ring road and directed the MC to manage the Gymkhana Cricket Ground through the local cricket association instead of leasing it out on contract basis, and also ensure provision of the missing facilities in the ground.