Stalled funds to 3 national parks to be released soon

Islamabad : The climate change ministry is sorting out modalities to pave the way for the release of stalled funds to three national parks where employees have been waiting for their monthly salaries for the last many months.

According to the official details, the ministry has enough funds to meet requirements of the national parks--Chitral Gol National Park, Hingol National Park (Balochistan) and Machiara National Park (AJK)--but the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has raised certain objections overworking of the Fund for Protected Areas (FPA).

“The FPA provides funds to these national parks but after objections from SECP it has stopped release of funds for the time being. But the ministry is trying hard to resolve this issue and release salaries to the employees working in these national parks,” the sources said.

Initially, the government has prepared a plan to spend Rs4 billion over the next three years to protect and preserve national parks across the country with a proper management regime that would promote eco-tourism besides creating 5,000 new jobs for the youth.

The government has also launched Pakistan’s first institutional ‘National Parks Service’ that will protect and conserve the national parks as biodiversity reserves and wildlife habitats. An official said the present government has taken large-scale measures to expand and strengthen the protected areas, contrary to the past regimes that did nothing in this respect.

“When this government started taking initiatives it faced some kinds of problems but after that, it has been resolving them with the passage of time. We will also resolve the issue of national parks and release the funds for their protection and preservation,” the official said.