Govt approves land acquisition for Bhasha Dam

Government extends Afghan refugees' stay until early 2017

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday approved land acquisition for the Diamer-Bhasha Dam along with barren land compensation rates.

The approval came at a meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by the prime minister. Over the meeting, 16 points of agenda were approved. The cabinet also green-lighted an extension in Afghan refugees stay until March, 2017.



"Afghans are our brothers and very dear to us...adequate and concrete steps will be ensured for facilitation of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan," the prime minister said. Other important issues approved in the meeting included minutes of the last cabinet meeting, an agreement between Indonesia and Pakistan on defence cooperation, ratification of an MoU between the State Bank of Pakistan and the Central Bank of Jordan on general cooperation in expertise and knowledge exchange and signing a protocol to amend the Saarc Limited Multilateral Agreement on avoidance of double taxation and mutual administrative assistance in tax matters.



Permission to start negotiations with Belarus for concluding an MoU on exchange of customs trade data statistics, confirmation of decisions taken by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC) during 2013, confirmation of the decisions taken by ECC during 2014, confirmation of the decisions taken by ECC during 2015, confirmation of the decisions taken by ECC during 2016, confirmation of the decisions taken by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet on Energy (CCE), confirmation of the decisions taken by the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) in its meeting held on February 10 and 13, March 9, 24 and 26, and April 6 and 11, 2015, confirmation of the decisions taken by CCOP, confirmation of the decisions taken by CCE in its meetings held on October 14, 2015 and February 22, 2016, confirmation of the decisions taken by ECC held on September 7, 2016 and the designation of the investigation agency under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, to the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) were among the other approvals granted in the meeting.



Last week, PM Nawaz approved the introduction of a Rs10 coin and the revision of the design of the Rs5 coin among other things. The premier was chairing a federal cabinet meeting in Islamabad which discussed a 15-point agenda.

The meeting was originally held on August 27 but the decisions were left pending until August 31. Decisions on important development programmes, introduction of Rs10 coin, revision of Rs5 coin, Tax Law Amendment Ordinance 2016 and determination of sales tax on petroleum products featured prominently on the agenda.