Officers directed to address public problems

LAHORE:Punjab Chief Secretary Azam Suleman on Tuesday warned the officers against absence from duty and laxity in work saying that they would have to work diligently to address people’s problems.

He stated this while chairing a meeting of all administrative secretaries at Civil Secretariat. The meeting reviewed the steps to speed up digitization of departments and timely disposal of pension cases. In the beginning of the meeting, the chief secretary (CS) through video calls conducted virtual visit of the offices of Faisalabad anti-corruption director, Bahawalnagar district health officer, Sahiwal land record assistant director and Rahimyar Khan sub-registrar. He checked the presence of officers in the offices and directly interacted with people. He asked visitors about the resolution of their problems and behaviour of the officers with them. The CS directed the administrative secretaries to expedite work on digitization of departments and paperless working as progress in this regard would be reviewed on a regular basis. The meeting reviewed the projects under the annual development programme. The meeting was told that out of total Rs 350 billion allocated for development schemes in financial year 2019-20, the Planning and Development Department had released Rs 205 billion while Finance Department had issued Rs 194 billion. So far the departments have utilised Rs 115 billion from the released funds.

Training ends: A ceremony was held to distribute certificates among the participants in five-week training on numerical modeling especially 3-D Flow Modeling organised by Centre of Excellence in Water Resource Engineering (CEWRE) of University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore.

Ministry of Water Resources Federal Secretary Muhammad Ashraf accompanied by Joint Secretary Ministry of Water Resources and Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Water Engr Mehr Ali Shah, Joint Secretary Technical Punjab Irrigation Engr Habib Ullah Bodla and Chief Engr Research PID Engr Fazal Kareem participated in the ceremony as chief guests. The event was also attended by engineers and scientist of Punjab Irrigation Department.

CEWRE Director Prof Dr Noor M Khan highlighted the need for numerical modeling for project planning and design. He appreciated the collaboration of CEWRE with Punjab Irrigation Department through support of Federal Ministry of Water Resources. Federal Secretary Muhammad Ashraf talked about the dearth of water resource experts and emphasised improvement in water resources education.