Outsource Galiyat rest houses, CM Khattak tells GDA

Pervez Khattak sees revenue rising, new township coming up in Nathiagali

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, while appreciating the increase in revenue generated by government rest houses after handing them over to the GDA for tourists, said that it was a step towards promotion of tourism in the province.

He said this while presiding over a meeting of the Galiayat Development Authority (GDA) board of directors at Nathiagali. The chief minister directed the officials to devise a plan for outsourcing all the government owned rest houses and to run these resorts on commercial lines to increase their earnings.



CM Khattak has decided to hand over all the government-owned rest houses in Galiyat to private sector. The rest houses were earlier under the control of the Tourism Corporation of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (TCKP) and most remained in the use of government officials. Therefore, the prime real estate could not generate any revenue for the province.

In May, on the directives of the provincial government, TCKP handed over all the government rest houses in the Galiyat area to GDA, which would now be responsible for running these resorts. With the new administration in place, CM also asked the GDA to hire employees who had background and education in hotel management industry.

Khattak expressed concern over reports of inappropriate behaviour of the rest house staff with guests. He ordered necessary training for the staff and also ordered to transfer some of the officers.

Town in the hills

The K-P chief minister, while chairing the GDA board meeting also directed to expedite work on a township spread over an area of 2,000 kanals and to prepare commercial and residential zones.



He directed the concerned officials to arrange electricity, water and other necessities on an emergency basis.

The township, planned at an altitude of 7,800 feet from the sea level, would be become one of the most attractive sites of Galiayat. Investors and developers were surely to pitch their stake in the planned resort town which was expected to become the tourist hub of the region in the near future, Khattak said.

The K-P chief minister appreciated GDA for removing encroachment from the main bazaars and widen roads in Galiyat. He  assured full cooperation of the provincial government. K-P ministers and MPAs including Mushtaq Ghani, Akbar Ayub, Sardar Muhammad Idrees, Faisal Zaman, Mahmood Jan and Dr Azhar Jadoon, local government secretary, Hazara Division commissioner and principal secretary to CM,  board members attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2017.