PM Imran wants to make Bala Hisar Fort a tourist spot

Premier issues directives for commercialising govt rest houses and transferring PTDC properties to provinces

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Bala Hissar Fort should be converted into a centre for tourist activities.

“Arrangement for the commercial use of 800 and 157 rest houses in Punjab and K-P, respectively, should be finalised,” Premier Imran said chairing a meeting of Tourism Task Force the PM Office on Monday according to an official statement.

He also approved reorganisation of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC).

The meeting approved the formation of a 25-
member National Tourism Coordination Board for the promotion of tourism in the country.

The decision was aimed at promoting tourism, enhancing coordination between federation and provinces, formulating provincial regulatory framework, and highlighting other objectives including the promotion of country's tourism at international level.

The 25-member National Tourism Coordination Board would comprise of representatives from federal ministries, provincial departments and people from private sector tourism industry.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza, Special Assistant to PM Iftikhar Durrani, Zulfiqar Bukhari, Provincial Ministers and members of the task force attended the meeting.

With a decision for reorganisation of Pakistan Tourism Development Coordination (PTDC), it was also decided to transfer Rs200 billion properties of PTDC to the provinces.

PTDC would serve as the Secretariat of National Tourism Coordination Board.

The meeting also decided to constitute special working groups on religious tourism, adventure tourism, cultural, historic and archaeological tourism, trans-Himalayan jeep rally group, infrastructure and facilitation, regulatory and policy reforms, and investment and tourism branding.

The PM was briefed about the progress achieved so far in the area of tourism and was told that work on the creation of 20 new tourism sites in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was in progress.

He was also briefed about the progress on making Bala Hissar Fort in Peshawar as a tourism site.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2019.