SLAMABAD, June 24: Railway Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq on Monday ordered for the launch of a special passenger train service between Kohat and Rawalpindi, which would function for thirty days starting Tuesday.

According to the spokesperson for the ministry, the minister took the decision to save the additional road travel of 160km and keeping in view the under-construction bridge at Khushalgarh.

The general manager (operations) of Pakistan Railways had informed the minister about the viability of the Kohat-Rawalpindi rail service, which had been abandoned in the past due to shortage of locomotives

Source:

http://x.dawn.com/2013/06/25/kohat-pindi-special-train-service/

KARAK: Former minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Farid Toofan on Monday said that his party would play a role in establishing the oil refinery in Karak to ensure rights of its residents.

Talking to reporters here, he said the establishment of the refinery in Kohat district was a conspiracy against representatives recently elected from Karak. However, he said his party supporters would foil this conspiracy.

“The lawmakers must raise voice on the floors of their respective assemblies to foil the bid for establishing oil refinery in Kohat,” Toofan asked legislators. He warned if the government did not reverse the decision, then the people of the Khattak tribe would be left with no option but to take to the streets.

Source link:

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-7-185837-PML-N-leader-wants-oil-refinery-in-Karak

BASIC FACILITIES: The Kohat division commissioner has asked the Oil and Gas Development Company to provide basic amenities of life to the people of Shakardarra area under an agreement.

Speaking at a meeting by OGDC officials on Tuesday, Jalal ud Din said Shakardarra needed attention in welfare projects as the company had been pumping huge quantity of oil and gas from the area for years. He asked the officials to solve the longstanding problem of water shortage, construct roads and compensate farmers for damages.

He said the people of Shakardarra had been demanding end to the ‘exploitation’ by the OGDCL and provision of basic facilities under the ‘water for oil’ agreement. “They have also been demanding jobs for their unemployed youth, health facilities and schools,” said the commissioner.

He said the local people had been fetching water from the Indus River which is miles away from Shakardarra. He said water supply schemes were lying dysfunctional due to low electricity voltage.

KOHAT, June 18: The University of Science and Technology, Kohat, has increased the semester fee by Rs4,000, prompting the students to announce a protest sit-in outside the governor house on Thursday.

Moreover, the university administration asked the students, who had boycotted papers of the last semester to deposit Rs10,000 for each subject.

However, the students have strongly opposed the increase in fee, saying most of them belong to poor families and therefore, cannot afford to pay high fee.

Recently, the university introduced a fifth semester for the students who got lower grades in the regular four semesters. It fixed Rs7,000 for each paper in the new semester, provoking the students to boycott examinations.

Source :http://x.dawn.com/2013/06/19/kohat-varsity-increases-semester-fee/

KARACHI: 

Budgets in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have historically been a litany of complaints against the federal government, followed by a recitation of numbers that, frequently, even the provincial finance ministers found tedious, boring and difficult to understand. Not this time: the PTI-led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government delivered their first governing document and made sure to lay out their strategy for the development of the province and connect it to their spending decisions, as laid out in the numbers.

When the numbers were first revealed, it immediately became clear why the PTI was unwilling to share the education portfolio with its coalition partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami. Education has the lion’s share of the provincial budget, about 30% of total spending. The Rs102 billion that Peshawar will be spending on education is substantially higher than last year, though the increase appears especially exaggerated due to an accounting change brought about by the new administration. Salaries of public school teachers were previously counted as part of the “general public service” budget and have now been counted as part of the education budget.

Public safety gets the second-highest allocation, at nearly Rs38 billion, no surprise in a province that has faced the onslaught of a brutal militant insurgency. The third highest allocation went to healthcare, just over Rs29 billion.

The PTI-led administration’s budget is a sharp contrast to the money bills presented by their predecessors, the Awami National Party, which had a tendency to try to blame all the ills of the province on a lack of federal cooperation. The PTI’s budget, by contrast, appears to mostly ignore the aspects that the provincial government cannot control – militancy, the tribal areas, etc – and chooses to focus on service delivery in areas that are directly under its jurisdiction: education, health, infrastructure, etc.

So, for instance, the provincial government nearly doubled the budgeted amount for urban and regional infrastructure, including drinking water and sanitation infrastructure, to Rs26 billion. Much of this spending will be financed with the assistance of foreign donors, who have allocated a total of Rs35 billion for aid to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

On the revenue side, however, the provincial budget remains disappointing. There has been little increase in what Peshawar expects it can collect in revenues on its own. The province’s own revenue-generating activities (aside from hydroelectric power) account for just 4.4% of the total revenue available to the government. This, perhaps, should not come as a surprise, since tax policy was among the weakest segments in what was said to be an otherwise well-crafted manifesto.

The single biggest chunk comes in the form of various transfers from the federal government, which taken together account for about three-quarters of the budget. Profits from hydroelectric power generation, little of which is done by the provincial government itself, account for another 10%, with foreign aid accounting for the remainder of Peshawar’s financial resources.

Nonetheless, the 2014 budget document was also a major step forward in terms of transparency: the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government provided an unprecedented level of detail in its figures, breaking out, for instance, how much it spends on government salaries versus how much goes towards other portions of its expenditure. It provided an exceedingly useful record of historical data, and it provided all of the numbers in an easy-to-use, and even easier-to-analyse Microsoft Excel files.

Whether all of these measures will translate into improved lives for the citizens of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is an open question, but the effort appears to be significantly above what the province has lived with so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.

PESHAWAR: 

Announced by Finance Minister Sirajul Haq in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday, the total budget is about 17.3% larger than the outgoing fiscal year’s budget, with a development budget of about Rs118 billion, nearly 40% larger than fiscal 2013. The single largest chunk of the development budget will be allocated towards education, followed by infrastructure development, including drinking water and sanitation infrastructure.

Education has the largest total share of the provincial budget, with nearly 30% being spent on education, a  substantial increase over last year. However, it was quickly learnt that the percentage increase being cited by many television channels on Monday afternoon was largely the result of an account change: the salaries of public school teachers, the single biggest expense on education, was previously being categorised as “general public expenditure” and was re-categorised under the education budget by the PTI-led government, rendering a comparison of this year’s budget with last year’s budget difficult.

The provincial government appears to also have announced an austerity drive, which relies on trying to cut non-salary expenses at the governor’s house and the chief minister’s house, as well as other high-end provincial government properties, by about 50%. It remains unclear, however, how much money this would actually save the government. The PTI-led government also sought to address the extreme reliance of the province on revenue transfers from the federal government. Sirajul Haq announced the creation of the Khyber-Pakthunkhwa Revenue Authority, which would have the responsibility to collect all provincial taxes and levies. It is not immediately clear if this authority would be an independent entity or whether it would amount to simply a renaming of the current provincial revenue department.

Among the revenues that the provincial government is targeting is a general sales tax on the province’s tourism industry. The provincial government has now begun an advertising campaign to lure back tourists and earn more revenues, touting the safety of Swat after the military campaign to rid the region of militants.

Following the lead of the federal government, the K-P government will also be giving its employees a raise, though the 15% raise in the province is higher than the 10% raise announced by Islamabad.

Among the biggest innovations of the PTI-led government was a far higher degree of transparency about the way the province conducts its accounting.

There were, however, some strange blind spots in the budget. In a province wracked by an extremely violent insurgency, the law enforcement budget was increased only by 11.3%, not far above the current year’s inflation number of 8%.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led coalition government made history on Monday by allocating Rs102.5 billion for the education sector in the budget for fiscal year 2013-2014. 

This is the highest amount ever allocated to education development in the province in any budget. For the current fiscal year, approximately Rs881 million more has been allocated for primary and secondary education. However, the numbers alone may be misleading; for the heads under which the money has been distributed have been changed this time around.

An estimated Rs60.5 billion has been allocated for government primary schools, administration, regional institutes for teachers’ education, secondary education and administration, higher education along with secretary elementary and education department of K-P. Out of this figure, a massive Rs56.44 billion has been allocated for the salaries of employees while only Rs4.41 billion is allotted for non-salary expenditure.

Rs372 million has already been released in the form of grants to nine autonomous and semi-autonomous institutions for the current fiscal year, including Sangota Public School Swat, Cadet College Kohat, Cadet College Swat, Fazle Haq College Mardan, Bacha Khan Model School Jandool Dir, Karnal Sher Khan Cadet College Swabi, Centennial Model School Batkheila, Sabawoon School Rangmala Malakand and for the purchase of land for Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, DI Khan.

For fiscal year 2012-2013, the total budget estimate for higher education was Rs5.39 billion which was raised in the revised budget to Rs5.44 billion. The budget allocated for fiscal year 2013-2014 is estimated to be Rs6.05 billion for general colleges, archives and libraries. Out of the total amount, Rs5.4 billion has been allocated for salaries and Rs630 million for non-salary expenditure.

Rs600 million has been allocated for the establishment of a comprehensive monitoring system, while Rs20 million is allocated for the creation of K-P Education Commission and Joint Education Advisory Commission.

The amount for student scholarships under the ‘Stori da Pakhtunkhwa’ initiative has been increased to Rs360 million. In addition, Rs100 million has been allocated for scholarships of Rs200 per month per girl in select districts to boost the enrollment rate of girls in schools.

Other features of the budget include the allocation of:

•   Rs500 million for ‘Chief Minister’s Endowment Fund’ to sponsor higher education for deserving students

•   Rs800 million for the expansion of ‘Rokhana Pakhtunkhwa Programme’

•   Rs500 million for the ‘Iqra Education Promotion Scheme’ for underprivileged children

•   Rs500 million as ‘Education Fund’ to establish private schools in areas where public schools do not exist

•              Rs15 million for financial incentives to female administrative officers posted in remote districts

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.

PESHAWAR: 

Making treatment affordable

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led provincial government has planned to initiate a number of projects, one of which would be a health insurance scheme in low-income districts. Families in low-income brackets will be offered insurance cards which will enable them to get free treatment for cancer, AIDS, and kidney and liver diseases. Rs500 million will be sanctioned for the insurance scheme.

‘Insulin for Life’ is another initiative to provide treatment to diabetic patients. Initially, the head of the Hayatabad Medical Complex Endocrinology Department will be the focal person, but eventually the programme will be extended to all district headquarters hospitals, aiming to benefit 15,000 patients.

“Ongoing free treatment for cancer and hepatitis C will continue for which Rs500 million and Rs175 million will be issued, respectively,” reads the document. The K-P government means to provide free treatment to 36,000 tuberculosis and 800 cancer patients.

Facilities at accident and emergency (A&E) departments of Peshawar and other district hospitals will be upgraded and all patients who come to these departments will get free treatment. Rs100 million has been proposed for this.

According to the budget document, qualified management officials would be posted at all tertiary care hospitals.

Maternal and child health

“The government will give Rs200 to those mothers who go for check-ups to qualified doctors after every three months following the birth of their child.” This initiative will at first be launched in 10 districts of K-P to decrease the maternal mortality ratio.

In addition, those mothers who get follow-up health checks during pregnancy from qualified midwives or at a hospital will be granted Rs1,000. The economic plan for 2013-2014 has allocated Rs300 million for this programme, which aims to decrease child mortality rates.

Immunisation has remained a controversial issue in K-P and over the past few years, many children did not receive essential routine vaccinations due to a lack of funds and political will. However, the government claims to have chalked out a new plan.

Under the new strategy, a special programme will be initiated in 10 less-developed districts – those parents whose children receive complete vaccination courses will receive Rs1,000 per child and in total, Rs200 million will be spent on this project.

The broad strokes

The ‘integration of vertical programmes’ – the merger of four projects funded by the centre – will be completed with foreign funding. The annual development programme in health sector for FY 2013-14 will receive Rs8 billion. The PTI, Qaumi Watan Party, Jamaat-e-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad’s coalition government also plans to construct the Gajju Khan Medical College in Swabi, provide new instruments to IRNUM, Peshawar, and construct hostels for the Saidu Medical College Swat. The government will continue the training of nurses for the next three years.

A new paediatric ward will be constructed and new instruments will be procured for the surgical ICU at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH). The construction of a paramedics’ hostel at the LRH will also be completed.

The budget goes on to promise the completion of district headquarters hospitals in Kohistan and Hangu, as well as 16 new basic health units. The fiscal plan also includes the completion of A&E units at Kohat, Mardan and DI Khan hospitals. While the document explains some aims in great detail, others are vague at best. The provincial government had consulted the planning and development department to put together a comprehensive plan to improve service delivery in government-run hospitals.

A nutrition and healthcare programme will start across five to eight districts which suffer from the worst health problems.

The government also suggested a survey be carried out to learn about diseases impacting the entire province. It says this exercise might point out where it can start a three-year health project through public-private partnership.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.

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interested candiates should contact on

Mr. Waleed Anjum 0334-8282637

How do I submit a claim?
You must use the receiver’s online claims portal. The link is found under the File A Claim tab on the website www.zeekrewardsreceivership.com. The receiver will require use of the online claims process in almost all cases in order to provide the greatest possible return to pyramid scheme victims and other creditors by keeping processing costs as low as possible.

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Provide all the information you remember or to which you have access. Your claim won’t be disallowed for failing to provide a password.

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I do not have all the information the receiver is requesting, such as missing dates or exact dollar amounts. Will incomplete information result in the disallowance of my claim?
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Is the crucial condition for the fulfillment of Allama Iqbal’s dream and of Quaid’s Pakistan vision now in place? Has democratic tradition taken root? Is the Constitutional frame, that steely-supple frame within which participation, transparency, accountability and comprehensive progress is possible within society, now in place, one wondered.

The occasion was the administering of the oath to the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, by President Asif Zardari at the Aiwan-e-Sadr. As the assembled guests, mostly yesterday’s political gladiators, were exchanging pleasantries, a happy subtext spelling discontinuity, also pervaded the chandeliers-studded hall — that unlike in the past, those who lost at the hustings were not looking to be a B team for the khaki adventurers.

Perhaps it was because of the cumulative wisdom that flowed from the decades of political blundering and suffering by the politicians and which made Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif sign the Charter of Democracy, a sign that finally the politicians were convinced of the power of constitutional democracy. There was a flashback to Pakistan’s manipulated politics, its many dimensions, martial laws, GHQ-scripted politics, guided-democracy, engineered democracy, quasi-democracy. At the swearing-in ceremony, there were many who had participated in the country’s manipulated politics: generals, judges, bureaucrats and the politicians we labelled as the B team. The indirect supporters included some of us from the media, the business community, professionals, etc. There were many of us who had in the past — to quote journalist-friend-politician Senator Mushahid Hussain — seen the “triple A” route to Islamabad: Allah, Army and America. Many of us were witness to the power of the Army and America at work within Pakistan’s political domain.

While experiencing a sense of vindication, the heavy costs of this derailment were hard to forget. They surface almost effortlessly: wars, break-up of our beloved homeland, hangings of elected leaders, violence and intolerance and sections of society immersed, courtesy mostly state policies, into sectarian and ethnic hatred. Competent management of national affairs, from the social sector to business and national security to legislation, was absent — what was present was expediency and ad-hocism. For many decades, Pakistan’s brand of statecraft has largely been non-serious, resulting in deeply damaging and distressing problems.

We have also stood witness to Pakistan’s great potential — that rested in its people, resources and strategic location — misused, under utilised and wasted. This will change, because the dynamics and the realities of Pakistan have changed, so I thought. Just then the huge door flung open and in walked the president and the PM-to-be. The same faces, same parties but now with the power of transparency and public debate — which means that those who err will be stopped in their tracks. Trashing the rule of law will be vigorously questioned, as it was in March and November 2007 and also through the last five years.

Pakistan’s turning points have been the Charter of Democracy, the 2007 movement against military rule for an independent judiciary and the peoples rejection of terrorist threats in the 2013 elections. In 2007, we recognised the importance of an independent judiciary, in the post-2008 period the Constitution was civilianised and in 2013, people rose against terrorism to vote for democracy.

My thoughts were interrupted by the tune of the national anthem, we all rose in a pledge of honour to our beloved homeland. It was a proud moment, one of collective pride. Above all, this moment belonged to the cumulative lessons that the Pakistani nation, the politicians and the institutions had learnt from our painful and volatile history.

The world must know, as we do, that Pakistan proved against all odds to be a learning nation, a wise nation. Our hardships made us suffer but our ability to reflect, to discuss and debate has made us wise, not bitter. It is also the miracle of open debate, of an independent media, that the people of Pakistan rejected the blundering ways and gravely simplistic ways of the establishment and opted for the long and tedious route of democracy to reform Pakistan.

We can now genuinely say, Pakistan is no more at the crossroads. We have chosen a path towards rule of law. Our destiny is in our collective hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2013.

Source: tribune

(QUETTA, Pakistan) — Pakistani police stormed a hospital that had been taken over by gunmen Saturday, freeing hostages and ending a five-hour standoff that began with a bombing just outside the emergency room and left five dead, officials said.

The attack in Quetta, capital of restive Baluchistan province, came just after another blast ripped through a nearby bus carrying female university students, killing at least 11 people and wounding 19, police chief Mir Zubair Mahmood said.

Soldiers and police commandos had rushed to the scene of the attack, where five to seven gunmen had taken over different sections of the building, head of police operations, Fayaz Sumbal, said.

Security forces later managed to pen the attackers off into a certain area, Sumbal added, as helicopters hovered overhead to keep the assailants off the rooftops. Officials said at least four of the attackers died during the final assault by police.

An Associated Press reporter outside the hospital as the attack unfolded heard intermittent gunfire as troops took up positions around the building. Later, as fighting continued into the evening, another loud explosion shook the hospital. Inside, patients, visitors and staff hiding behind locked doors spoke of the firefight.

“Everybody is trying to take shelter — in the corners, behind the steel cupboards and tables,” Hidayatullah Khan, who had been visiting a niece wounded in the earlier bus bombing, told the AP by telephone.

“Some armed people are roaming around but we closed the door and locked it,” he added. “We have been hearing shots for some time.”

Sumbal said the initial explosion at the hospital went off as rescuers and relatives of the victims from the bus bombing crowded the emergency room where the dead and wounded were taken.

A top government official who had been visiting the wounded female students died in the hospital blast, officials said.

Another four Frontier Corps troops also died, said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. But it was not clear whether they were killed in the explosion or in the ensuing operation to clear the building. He said at least 35 people trapped inside the building were freed.

Besides the four attackers killed, one was in custody, the minister added.

Two of the attackers blew themselves up as security forces were closing in on them, said Mahmood, the Quetta police chief. He said security forces were now going methodically through the building to make sure no more attackers were left inside.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the hospital attack or bus bombing, although the vast Baluchistan region has been plagued by violence from Baluch nationalists, sectarian militant groups and the Taliban.

A spokesman for the Baluchistan government, Jan Mohammad Buledi, told Pakistan’s Geo TV that the two attacks were connected. Militants often stage coordinated attacks to target rescuers and others as they rush to the hospital.

Footage on Pakistani television showed people fleeing from the hospital after the explosion and hiding behind ambulances in the parking lot.

Earlier Saturday, militants destroyed a house once lived in by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who led the country to independence in 1947.

Attackers on motorcycles planted bombs at the 19th century residence in the mountain resort town of Ziarat, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Quetta. Three of the bombs exploded and ignited a fire that destroyed the building, said senior police officer Asghar Ali Yousufzai.

The attackers also shot dead a police guard outside the residency, which had been turned into a museum about the man many Pakistanis call Quaid-e-Azam, or “great leader.”

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack in a statement and expressed his sorrow over the policeman’s death.