LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif Wednesday presided over a high-level meeting in which he expressed his displeasure over delay in giving a final shape to the Disaster Insurance Plan, and ordered an inquiry in this regard.
Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said that delay in the programme to provide relief to calamity-hit people could not be tolerated. He said that a comprehensive system of insurance was necessary to compensate the losses of people by dint of calamities, especially floods.
He said apart from human deaths, loss of crops, houses and livestock should also be included in the insurance plan. The meeting also reviewed several proposals regarding the finalisation of the insurance plan.
Present at the meeting were provincial ministers Malik Nadeem Kamran, Ayesha Ghaus Pasha and Ijaz Ahmed Achlana, besides chief secretary and other officials concerned.
Separately, the chief minister has said that the victory of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Sheheryar Awan in Chakwal by-elections is the triumph of service, honesty and transparency.
“The result shows that the people of Pakistan have complete confidence in the leadership and policies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,” he said, adding that the PML-N government had always focused on selfless public service.
Congratulating the winning candidate, Shahbaz said that the people – by casting their vote in the favour of the PML-N candidate – had made it clear that there was no room for negative politics. He said that PML-N government had set a new example of public service during the last four years.
Meanwhile, Shahbaz Sharif has congratulated newly elected Punjab Assembly Press Gallery Committee President Zaheer Shehzad and Secretary Ayaz Shujah.
He expressed the hope that newly elected office-bearers would utilise their experience to maintain exalted journalistic traditions of the Punjab Assembly.
Earlier, addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Bhikki Power Plant in Sheikhupura on Wednesday, the chief minister said that with the completion of work on power projects, energy crisis would be eliminated by the end of 2017. He said that the Punjab government had save millions of rupees by ensuring transparency in several power projects.
The chief minister took a swipe at his political opponents, saying that the “sit-in” group had inflicted heavy losses to the national economy. “Completion of server power projects was delayed due to worst conspiracies of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI),” he said.
The Bhikki Power Plant was inaugurated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday. The prime minister was accompanied by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Punjab Governor Muhammad Rafique Rajwana, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali and the CEO of the Chinese company working on the project.
The power plant, completed in 18 months, will add 717MW to the national grid for now.
