Cabinet meeting: CM says govt jacked up KP’s income by 50%

PESHAWAR: Lauding the performance of his cabinet colleagues over the last one year, Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Wednesday said that his government had increased the income of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by 50 percent without imposing any tax.

An official handout said that he was chairing the 27th meeting of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet which was attended by cabinet members, chief secretary, additional chief secretary, Senior Member Board of Revenue, administrative secretaries and the advocate general Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The chief minister said that while taking over the reign of government one year ago, the province hardly had 15 days salaries for the employees but now they have a historic Rs150 billion surplus. Without imposing any tax, the income of the province has been increased 50 percent while on the other hand not only cent percent releases have been made to the ADP schemes but the frozen ones too retaken up. He pointed out that the health card scheme was stopped but they have not only retaken it up but widened its coverage.

Due to good governance, as many as Rs900 million a month was saved just in the Health Card scheme despite the widening of services. He pointed out that liabilities worth Rs87 billion had been cleared and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became the first province to have established a debt retirement Fund and reserved Rs30 billion for it.

As far as new schemes, the first ever Provincial Transmission Line had been taken up at a cost of Rs18 billion to provide cheap electricity to the industrial units. The posting transfers of public servants were being made on merit and no political pressure would be accepted in this regard, he remarked.