President Dr Arif Alvi has urged the need to undertake financially sustainable and viable development projects, besides reducing pilferage in government departments’ expenditures to enhance efficiency and reduce the financial burden on governments. He added that better planning and implementation of development projects by the trained and qualified development professionals could help improve overall service delivery in the country and help meet people’s expectations. The President expressed these views during a briefing on the development projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), at Governor House, Peshawar, today. Provincial Minister for Health and Finance, Mr. Taimoor Saleem Jhagra, Chief Secretary KP and other senior officials of the KP Government attended the meeting. Addressing the meeting, the President said that better financial controls and enhanced accountability of government departments would help improve the efficiency and efficacy of development projects, besides helping reduce the financial burden on the national and provincial exchequers. The President appreciated the development activities undertaken by the provincial government in KP, and highlighted the need to overcome the gap between people’s expectations and service delivery. He said that necessary infrastructure and basic facilities, particularly in the health and education sectors, needed to be commensurate with the people’s needs, adding that better planning and implementation of development projects could help meet the supply-demand gap. The President also highlighted the need to focus on the prevention of diseases, both communicable and non-communicable diseases, adding that the overall disease burden could be reduced by adopting necessary precautionary measures and healthy living. This, he said, would help reduce the burden on government health infrastructure and save precious resources. The President said that Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms could be adopted in the newly-merged districts (NMDs) of KP to provide speedy and timely redressal to people’s grievances in those areas. This, he added, would also reduce the burden on the traditional justice system, besides helping improve the overall law and order situation in the region. During the meeting, the President was briefed about different development projects undertaken by the KP government and the overall law and order situation in the province. It was highlighted that since the inception of Sehat Cards in KP, 1.5 million patients had availed treatment facilities worth almost Rs 27 billion in different hospitals of KP. It was informed that roads spanning 1005 km were constructed during the past four years, 1071 schools were being established or renovated, and 200 BHUs, 50 RHCs, and 25 DHQs were being revamped and converted into 24/7 facilities
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