Payment of salaries: Parliamentary panel directs govt to provide sufficient budget to GSP

A parliamentary panel has directed the government to allocate required funds to the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) to enable it to pay the salaries of its employees.
These directives were passed by the Senate Standing Committee on Problems of the Less Developed Areas, which met here on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Senator Usman Khan Kakar to discuss the function of the GSP and review its performance.
Deputy Director General GSP, Yasmeen Rizvi while briefing the meeting said that total budget of the organisation was Rs 1.062 billion including Rs 479 million current expenditure and Rs 573 million developmental expenditures.
The chairman committee and other members expressed serious reservations over such a meager amount for developmental budget of an organisation spread across the country and carrying out significant works regarding exploring the potential of natural resources of the country.
The participants were informed that GSP has 1,055 sanctioned positions and 221 of which at present are vacant. The committee said that almost 20 percent posts are vacant in an entity which has significant contribution in exploring multibillion dollars natural rescores of Thar Coal, Reko Diq, Saindak and many more. The committee asked the concerned quarters to take immediate steps in filling the vacant positions of GSP and provide sufficient budget to GSP so that it could take up the planned projects.
Rizvi said that Pakistan Navy, Air Force and Army, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) and other public sector and private sectors companies are benefiting from the services provided by GSP.
Usman Kakar directed the officials of GSP to provide details of provinces' mineral deposits to the committee in the next meeting so that the committee can recommend and ask the provincial and federal governments to speed up exploration and production work of natural resources with main focus to eliminate poverty.
The committee said that almost 95 percent of the mineral resources are situated in remote and rural areas of the country, therefore, the government and other relevant departments must focus on the exploration of the natural resources from the remote areas. It will not only help develop the regions but also help eliminate negative elements to attract youth for using them illegal activities.
Senator Kalsoom Parveen said that Balochistan is rich in natural resources and anti-Pakistan elements always try to divert the attention of the Baloch people to other matters so that they can keep the area backward and exploit the situation.
She stressed the need for focusing and utilising all the resources on exploring and developing the potential natural resources of the Balochistan, saying it will not only greatly reduce unemployment situation in the province but help control law and order situation.