Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Prof Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday said that the volume of the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) is likely up to Rs 700 billion in the budget 2022-23, which will increase more development opportunities in the country.
At the same time, he said that efforts will be made to raise up to Rs 200 billion more through public-private partnership, which will accelerate development projects. Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Prof. Ahsan Iqbal expressed these views while addressing a press conference here at the Press and Information Department. He said that in a total, 44 percent of PSDP projects are provincial projects and the remaining 46 percent are federal projects. “We have ample opportunities.”
“We had taken PSDP to Rs1,000 billion during previous tenure of PML-N government. However, former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government had brought to Rs500 billion, which till now it wanted to reach Rs2,000 billion,” Ashan said, adding that the government will work mostly on youth’s issues, water scarcity and other issues which are very important for the sustainable economic development of the country.
The minister said that there was no work on the projects of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the previous regime, but only a few of these projects started during our tenure. He said that work on 9 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) of CPEC was to be completed by 2020 but not a single SEZ was completed by the PTI government. Ahsan said that Chinese industrial relocation was possible only with the completion of these 9 CPEC SEZs, which did not happen.
He said that the Chinese government was more interested in the Hattar Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project, but the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) KPK provincial government decided to transfer the project to Rashakai SEZ. “Now the government is trying to include Hattar SEZ also.” The minister said that the PML- N government strongly condemns the anti-Pakistan statement of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said that the security of the country is the first responsibility of the state in which no negligence will be tolerated. He said no one would be allowed to speak on other sensitive issues, including the country’s nuclear program.
He said that former prime minister Imran Khan should not be embarrassed to say such things as he has been ousted from the government and he should show political seriousness. He said that in the past, the government of PTI had led the country towards an economic crisis which the present government was trying to rectify.
