K-P allots land to build military cantonment in Swat

Govt decides to allow Nizam-e-Adl Regulation to continue in erstwhile PATA

PESHAWAR: The provincial government on Thursday decided to allot over 75 kanals of land, including some forest land, for building a military cantonment in Swat.

The government has said that they will have to relax some rules to allow forest land to be leased for the project.

The decision was taken as the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) cabinet met in the cabinet room of the civil secretariat in Peshawar on Thursday with Chief Minister Mahmood Khan in the chair.

In a media briefing after the cabinet meeting, K-P government spokesperson Shaukat Yousufazi noted the sacrifices made by the army in combating militancy in the Malakand division and added that the government had decided to establish an army cantonment in the area for maintaining permanent peace in the region.

“Forest land cannot be leased or given away so the rules will be relaxed so as to remove the legal hurdles,” he said, adding that around 75 Kanals and nine Marlas of land have been allocated to build the Swat Cantonment, including 19 kanals and 14 Marlas of forest land.

It also approved the purchase of 368.7 kanals of land to build the 84 megawatts Gorkin-Matiltan Hydro Power Project in Swat.

The cabinet also approved Rs2.9 billion as a supplementary grant for the finance department to pay liabilities of 117 developmental schemes.

During Thursday’s meeting, Yousufzai said that the provincial cabinet had also decided to continuation with the Shariah Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009 — which provides for the appointment of qazis (judicial officers) well-versed in the Shariah and restoration of the erstwhile executive magistracy system — and other laws implemented in the erstwhile Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA).

“The laws will continue to work until the completion of the merger [of the tribal areas with the province],” Yousufzai said.

The cabinet also decided to set up a directorate of drug control and pharmacy services under the ambit of the K-P Health Department.

The directorate will be responsible for monitoring and regulating the pharmaceutics business in the province along with clinical laboratories.

“K-P will be the first province to take such an initiative which will regulate and inspect medicines available in the market to curb the illegal drug trade,” he said, adding that the directorate will benefit the people by controlling and regulating these unregulated sectors.

The cabinet also approved the appointment of district and sessions judges as anti-terror court judges in the province — following due approval from the Peshawar High Court (PHC).

The government also approved a move to register printers and publishers who print the Holy Quran.

The cabinet also approved a search and nomination committee which will be responsible for finalizing names and appointing a board of governors for medical teaching institutes in the province, as per the directives of the Supreme Court. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2018.