Govt seeks input on FRP draft

Islamabad

The government has sent draft of Fata Reforms Package (FRP) to all stakeholders including intelligence agencies and all the services chiefs to seek their input to decide about future of the region where the security institutions are still conducting operations to purge it of militants and armed groups, the sources told The News here on Friday.

The sources said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday directed the relevant authorities to send draft of Fata Reforms Package to all the stakeholders before the upcoming sessions of the Senate and National Assembly in which the members would discuss the proposals given in the reforms package.

“When the members start discussion on the proposed Fata Reforms Package in the upcoming sessions of the upper and lower houses of the Parliament then they would have to know about the input from the intelligence agencies and the security institutions so the government has decided to seek such input as soon as possible,” a senior government official told this correspondent.

He said the members of the parliament would have to discuss all the proposals of the Fata Reforms Package including maintaining status-quo with minor changes; or granting special status to Fata like Gilgit-Baltistan; creating a separate province for Fata; or integration of Fata into Khyber-Pakhtoonkhawa (KP) province.

The sources said Fata Reforms Package has been prepared in line with the National Action Plan (NAP) and its main purpose is to bring this under-developed area at par with other developed areas of the country that may help remove extremist and terrorist elements operating from this area.