New districts to be notified on merit: Shaukat Yousafzai

F.P. Report

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

The cabinet met with the Chief Minister Mehmood Khan in the chair deliberated on various agenda items including working women hostels urban mass transit amendment act 2016, technical allowance for engineers, measure to improve KP budget by activating board of revenue, LPG issues in Chitral and staff regularization issues of Vehicle Emission Testing stations.

The cabinet also approved limited financial autonomy to some of the department for making them service delivery oriented.

The annual report of the provincial ombudsman office was also presented in the cabinet meeting, Minister for Information Shaukat Yousafzai told media after the cabinet meeting.

The cabinet approved two years extension in the services of contract employees of the office of provincial ombudsman. It also approved appointment of Rakhshanda Naz as Ombudsperson for KP for protection of women against harassment at workplaces.

The cabinet approved the appointment in the light of the recommendations of a search committee constituted under Protection against working women harassment bill 2018 and headed by Chief Secretary KP.

The Provincial Minister said that the committee finalized three names including Rakhshanda Naz whom name was approved by the cabinet as Ombudsperson keeping in view her vast services for the rights of women.

Shaukat Yousafzai said that the cabinet approved Standard Operating Procedure (SoPs) for women hostels in the province to facilitate women folk. It decided SoPs for working women hostels in districts Peshawar and Mardan. The main focus of the SoPs would be regulating allotment procedure for the beneficiaries in the said hostels.

The cabinet also approved Urban Mass Transit (amendment) Act 2016, under which Urban Mobility Authority would be set up to streamline and regulate mass transport programs in the province.

The cabinet decided to set up a committee to deliberate and find out a workable solution about provision of technical allowance to the government engineers, adding the committee would comprise representatives from the department of law, finance and administration. The committee would recommend grant of technical allowance to the deserving government engineers.

The Cabinet after thorough deliberation on issues pertaining to new districts decided that in future no district would be announced on political basis rather all ground realities would be analyzed on merit and as per policy.

Shaukat Yousafzai said that the cabinet also discussed LPG shortage in district Chitral and decided that the issue would be addressed on priority basis.

The cabinet discussed the issue of regularization of staff working in Vehicle Emission Testing Stations and dropped the matter while seeking performance report of the stations.