Minister spotlights initiatives taken for depts’ uplift

LAHORE : Caretaker Punjab Minister for Transport, Local Government, Livestock and Mines & Minerals Ibrahim Hasan Murad underscored the impactful initiatives implemented across various departments during his one-year tenure.

At a press briefing here on Saturday, he recounted the caretaker government’s exemplary performance and mentioned the introduction of a task management system in the local government department and a notable increase in revenue through cattle market auctions, rising from Rs3.5 billion to Rs5.7 billion. The revenue of local government department has also been increased from Rs10 billion in term of property tax digitisation, he added.

More than 200,000 tons of waste was removed in ‘Safai Nisf Imaan’ campaign focused on Clean and Green Punjab. Over 1,500 transparent transfers and posting were approved in the LG department, he claimed.

While highlighting initiatives taken in the mines and minerals department, he said that Rs2.17 billion has been increased in non-tax revenue of the department, adding that Geographical Indication (GI) of rock salt as pink rock salt is the biggest achievement of the mines department. Roadmap to generate Rs150 billion revenue has been developed which would be taken forward by the next government.

He mentioned that an online monitoring system has been established for check and balance of field offices and officers.Efforts were made to make the auction/tendering system transparent and to break the regional monopolies of mining contracts and lease holders.

The department has identified around 27 new areas of rock salt mineral in Punjab while identification and approval of 36 new sand zones were formulated in last two months.

PUNJMIN (Punjab Mineral Development Corporation) was the only public sector corporation in the field of mining which has turned into a profitable entity with a Rs400 million profit, he said.

The marriage grant for daughters of mine workers has been doubled to Rs400,000 while the government has increased the rate of compensation grant in case of mine worker’s death to 33 percent which would be now Rs800,000, he mentioned.

Over Rs1 billion budget was approved by the welfare board in its 58th meeting for the welfare of mine workers, he added.

About the transport department, he said that the government has launched an environment friendly project of introducing 26,000 electric vehicles across Punjab.

These include 10,000 e-bikes, including 2,000 for women, 10,000 rickshaws, including 2,000 for disabled individuals.

Another 2,000 were allocated for government employees.

The caretaker government has awarded the first ever licence to e-rickshaw manufacturers, he announced.

The department is stepped up inspection of vehicles, with a total of 148,792 vehicles inspected in 175 days from Aug 1 to Jan 22. An average of 850 vehicles were inspected each day, a 47 percent improvement in the daily number of inspections, he said. Revamping of bus stations, solarisation of the metro track, transport fair adjustment according to fuel prices and patch work of the Rawalpindi metro bus track were also the key initiatives of the caretaker government.