Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif Friday reviewed the steps taken for overall development of the province including provision of better services and promotion of good governance at grass-roots level, in a meeting which held here.
Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said that far-reaching reforms had been introduced in the public sector departments by dexterous use of information and communication
technologies. “Due to it, service delivery mechanism as well as efficiency of the public sector departments have improved,” he added.
He said that composite development of remote and far-flung areas had been given due importance and mega projects worth billions of rupees had been completed.
“The mission of providing better services to the people has been accelerated with commitment and dedication. Merit has been promoted in every sector and recruitment have been
made purely on merit and competence,” he added.
He said that correct and transparent use of resources had been ensured as well and different schemes had been completed, which had provided direct benefit to masses.
The chief minister said that the government efforts for overcoming energy crisis had borne fruit and load-shedding had been eliminated due to completion of energy projects. He
said that national economy had directly benefited from overcoming of the energy crisis.
“On the other hand, the Punjab government has set a good example by saving billions of rupees in energy projects and this money has been spent on the programmes of relief to
the people,” he added.
“The people have been given prompt relief due to the government efforts taken for bringing improvement in social sector,” he added.
He said that thousands of children of brick-kiln workers had been given an opportunity to get education free-of-cost and more than 275,000 children of low-income families had
been provided an opportunity to study free-of-cost under the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund.
“Meanwhile, missing facilities have been provided in 44,000 schools and new hospitals have been established to provide the latest healthcare facilities to patients. It is for the first time that high-quality medicines are being given free-of-cost to the needy patients and samples of medicines
sent to international laboratories have been proved hundred per cent correct,” he added.
It is satisfying that mobile health units are providing diagnostic and treatment facilities to the people living in remote areas, he added.
The chief minister said that villages had been made neat and clean under the Khadim-e-Punjab Saaf Deehat Program and thousands of kilometres long farm-to-market roads had been
constructed by spending a colossal sum of Rs 85 billion under Khadim-e-Punjab Rural Roads Program. “A network of developed roads, bridges, underpasses and flyovers has been spread in
the province as latest infrastructure plays an important role in boasting trade activities,” he added.
He said that it was satisfying that small farmers had been provided interest-free loans for the first time in history of the province and landless farmers were also taking benefit of this scheme. “The Rs 100 billion Kissan Package has left positive impact on the agriculture sector. The government has also taken steps to provide food items on subsidized rates and keeping in view the importance of sports
in the society; steps have been taken to promote sports activities. Besides developing five playgrounds for hockey, new grounds have also been made for different sports
activities,” he added.
Chairman P&D gave a detailed briefing about programs of public welfare. Provincial ministers Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan, Malik Nadeem Kamran, spokesman Punjab government Malik Ahmed
Khan, chief secretary and secretaries of departments concerned attended the meeting.

Source: APP