The provincial cabinet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday approved the formal launching of the Bacha Khan Khpal Rozgar Scheme from next month. The decision of the launching of scheme was taken in 30th meeting of the provincial cabinet held here at the Cabinet Room of the Civil Secretariat with Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti in the chair.
The Rs 1 billion scheme would be started from February 1 through the Bank of Khyber. Briefing the media regarding decisions taken during the meeting, the Provincial Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussein said that the provincial cabinet has constituted a special committee under the chairmanship of the Provincial Minister for Finance with ministers for industries, social welfare, secretary finance, Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP), Provincial Chief, Smeda, secretary industries and Managing Director, Bank of Khyber, which has presented procedure for the implementation of the scheme and the cabinet approved.
Under the scheme, the Bank of Khyber will provide a small loan of Rs 20,000 to Rs 1,00,000 with only 4 per cent bank services charges and will charge only 1.5 per cent on the issuance of the credit. 30 per cent share would be given to women and 2 per cent to special persons. The loan would be returned in 36 instalments and skilled unemployed youth would be given priority.
Those who have taken benefit of the Waseela Haq, commercial banks and other financial institutes will not be entitled for the scheme and defaulters will not be allowed to get the loans under the scheme. The Bank of Khyber, Smeda and Director Industries would monitor the procedure adopted by the bank in the issuance of the loans, while another oversight committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary will carry the monitoring of the scheme. Other members of the oversight committee are secretary industries and secretary finance.
The cabinet also approved a scheme of imparting technical training to 1500 youth. The scheme will cost Rs 10.5 million. Under the scheme 200 youth would be imparted training and education in civil, electrical, mechanical and telecom sectors in the best institutions of the country. The training would be a three-year diploma and during the training each students will be paid Rs 2000/- per month in the head of scholarship. Under the scheme 800 youth including 120 girls would be given one-year technical training in different sectors. All expenses on their training would be borne by the provincial government.
The training would be given to those students have passed their secondary education certificate examination with more than 60 per cent marks with age from 18 to 24 years. The provincial cabinet also decided the establishment of oil and gas company at provincial level for overcoming the shortage of resources and extend their availability to the people.
According to an estimate the reserves of the crude oil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is near one billion barrel and natural gas is four trillion cft. Therefore, the provincial government, he said considered the establishment of such company necessary for the better utilisation of available reserves of oil and gas in the province. The decision of the provincial government, he said will not only help supply sufficient oil and gas to the industrial units in the province, but will also be provided to the general public on cheap price. The headquarters of the company will be comprised of 18 experts and 30 other supporting staffs including experts of planning, commerce and technical sectors. 128 technical staff would be appointed for drilling in field.
The cabinet has approved the PC-II and other preparations regarding the project that will cost Rs 3.2 million. The cabinet has also approved exempting from tax the industrial units of industrial estates in Kohat Road Industrial Estate, Peshawar and industrial units in Nowshera for a period of one year. The cabinet also directed the department of industries for presenting a detailed report on the taxes levied on the industries in the province within a period of two months. Furthermore, the departments of Excise & Taxation and Local Government were directed to prepare joint proposals regarding property tax.
The cabinet also approved review of the rents of the government rest houses in light of the expenses and also approved Rs 200/- per room as relief fund charge. The cabinet also directed the department of law to review all laws of the province and take measures for changing the name of Sarhad to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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