Education minister adopts school

LAHORE
Punjab Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan formally adopted the Government Middle School, Sikandria Colony, Bund Road, here on Thursday.
The adoption of school is under the ‘Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab’ campaign, launched by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Earlier, addressing the ceremony Rana Mashhood said the Punjab government was providing all-out resources for provision of quality education, adding that parliamentarians were adopting schools, which would have long-lasting impact on the sector. He said Punjab CM also adopted a school and he would visit it soon.
The minister said future of Pakistan was linked with provision of quality education and government was taking several steps to achieve this goal including training of teachers and provision of missing facilities in government schools. He said school enrolment had increased under ‘Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab’ initiative.
Rana Mashhood visited every classroom of the adopted school and asked questions from students about their course books. He said talented students guaranteed safe and bright future of Pakistan.
He also announced story books would be distributed among students and visit of zoo would be arranged for them. The minister took notice of mistakes found in course books and said strict action would be taken against those who were responsible for the negligence.
EDO Education Lahore Pervaiz Akhtar, representatives of DFID and Unicef, a large number of students and schoolteachers were present on the occasion.
Tax net: Punjab Minister for Excise & Taxation, Law and Finance, Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman has said the new institutions and persons will be bought into tax net for increasing the provincial economy. He said the revenue duty, stamp duty, Abiyana, cotton fee, property, token, and services taxes were a major source of income of the government. He said the government was introducing the computerised technology for improving the collection of taxes.
He expressed these views while presiding over a meeting of the Resource Mobilisation Committee. MPAs Shaikh Alao-ud-Din, Dr. Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, Secretary Finance Muhammad Yousaf Khan, secretaries of departments concerned, and senior officials attended the meeting.
Mujtaba said that some people and entrepreneurs were paying just two or three hundred rupees annually under the head of professional tax therefore the government was considering increasing the ratio of professional tax on well-to-do professionals. The meeting was informed that there were 16 non-tax collecting departments i.e. agriculture, Board of Revenue, Cooperatives, C&W, education, finance (NHP, interest on loans, Federal/PSDP Grants and Straights Transfers, FWF, HUD & PHE, home, health, industries, irrigation, law, mines & minerals, polio, and miscellaneous departments.