Govt efforts will address ‘people’s woes’

State minister for water and power says 8,000mw have been added to the national grid

FAISALABAD: State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali said the government is making efforts to alleviate the suffering of the common man.

He said authorities are taking revolutionary steps to promote education, research culture, provision of state-of-the-art health facilities, the agriculture sector and to ensure power generation.

He expressed these views during a meeting with University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice-Chancellor Dr Muhammad Iqbal Zafar at UAF on Thursday.

Abid Sher Ali said that when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz came into power four years ago, the country was facing power outages which lasted up to 18 hours.  “We have put an end to load-shedding and pulled the country out of the darkness,” he added.

He said the PML-N government added 8,000 megawatts to the national grid since it came into power back in 2013 to overcome the power crisis.

Abid urged scientists to develop out-of-the-box solutions to redress the grievances of the common man. He maintained agriculture was the backbone of the economy and contributed to 20% to the Gross Domestic Product.

Abid added the government introduced a Prime Minster Kissan Package worth Rs341 billion to develop the agriculture sector and to facilitate farmers. The minister said that quality education and trained manpower were essential to compete with the rest of the world. He lauded UAF’s steps in the area of academics and research with a special focus on agriculture sector.

Meanwhile, VC Muhammad Iqbal Zafar, said, “Without ensuring quality education, we cannot cope with the challenges of modern era.” He lauded the revolutionary steps of the government to promote education and uplift the agriculture sector.

“Knowledge-based economies are growing across the globe and we have to take measurers in this regard.” He pointed out that UAF was taking all possible measures to produce quality manpower and research.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2018.