Cabinet decides to develop reserve forest at Salt Range park

LAHORE:Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar chaired the 31st meeting of the provincial cabinet at a local hotel on Thursday.

The meeting decided to develop the Sambli (North) Reserve Forest as the Salt Range National Park on an area of 13,700 acres and also approved a notification.

Cutting of trees and hunting would be banned and the land would not be utilized for any other purpose in the park. The chief minister also directed to constitute a management committee to oversee park affairs. The cabinet approved the appointment of Maj. (R) Azam Suleman as the provincial ombudsman and decided to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan to formulate interim policy 2020-21. The committee will submit its policy recommendations for releasing wheat to flour mills. Meanwhile, approval of amendments to the Cooperative Societies Act, 1925 and the Punjab Undesirable Cooperative Societies Dissolution Act, 1993, was also granted.

Chief Minister Usman Buzdar appreciated the performance of Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan as well as the food department for procuring record wheat during the current season as bumper wheat stocks have been purchased for the first time after a gap of ten years. Now, the Punjab government has ample wheat reserves and full attention will be paid to providing relief to the common man while formulating wheat release policy, he added. Usman Buzdar maintained the government was creating ease for people and welfare of poor families would be fully taken care of while formulating the policy about the release of wheat to flour mills. He also directed the ministers to proactively attend the budget session.

Opposition: The provincial ministers and MPAs called on Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar at his chamber set up in a local hotel here on Thursday and apprised him of the problems in their constituencies.

While issuing directions to solve the problems in the constituencies, the CM said that full attention has been paid to the development of backward areas. “I solve the problems of public representatives by considering them my own and my doors are opened to all of you,” he assured the parliamentarians.

"I am always available for public service. We deliver more but project it less,” he maintained. The CM continued that the government has fully focused on the development of every area. He asked the parliamentarians to work hard for the solution to the public problems.

He said that Pakistan and the rest of the world have entered a new phase due to the global coronavirus pandemic but it is lamentable that Pakistani Opposition is still living in the past and is indifferent to the hazards of coronavirus. The Opposition leaders are following the practice of criticism for the sake of criticism but the people have fully recognised their dual faces, he added.

Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar reminded that those who are making hue and cry had badly ignored the health sector in their tenures and could not develop even a single hospital where they could be treated today. The PTI government has given full attention to the betterment of the health sector and the increase made in the health budget during the tenure of the PTI government has no resemblance in the past, he asserted. The point-scoring by Opposition parties on the issue of coronavirus is condemnable as it is not time to do politics but get united.

The PTI leadership will continue to stand with the people in the larger public interest, the CM concluded. Those who called on the CM included provincial ministers Muhammad Mohsin Leghari, Muhammad Ajmal Cheema and Shaukat Ali Laleka, and MPAs Niaz Hussain Khan, Alamdar Abbas Qureshi, Nawabzada Mansoor Ahmed, Faisal Hayat, Shakeel Shahid, Muhammad Latif Nazar, Makhdoom Syed Iftikhar Gilani, Firdous Rahana, Sajida Begum, Sania Kamran, Shameem Aftab, Sajida Yusaf, Abida Bibi and Aon Dogar. Chief Whip in Punjab Assembly Syed Abbas Ali Shah and Good Governance Committee Secretary Col (R) Ijaz Hussain Minhas were also present.