By Fazal Khaliq
MINGORA: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has said that promotion of education is the top priority of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government and people in the province would see several mega projects completed in the next two years.
He was addressing a public meeting in Charbagh here on Sunday after inaugurating work on the construction of building of the University of Swat.
Elders of the area, students, MNAs and MPAs were in attendance besides special assistant to CM for information Mushtaq Ghani.
The chief minister said that people of Swat loved education and the land had centuries-old history of education, civilisation and culture heritage. “Though people of Swat witnessed ugly times in the recent past, nothing could move them away from the love of pen and book,” he said.
Inaugurates work on construction of Swat university building
He said that PTI gave top priority to education and had set up monitoring cells in the education department. “We understand that without education no society can be developed and where there is no education, youth will automatically involve in militancy and negative activities,” he said.
Mr Khattak said that work on six universities in the province was in progress. “With the help of Austrian government the country’s biggest university for applied sciences will be set up in Haripur,” he said, adding that to bring reforms in the education sector, the University Model Act would be passed from the assembly soon.
The chief minister announced IT and biodiversity parks for the University of Swat and asked the officials concerned to ensure completion of the varsity’s building by 2018.
He said that construction of Swat Expressway would be started in July this year and the project completed by Dec 2017. He said that an industrial park would also be established in Chakdara which would be connected with CPEC.
He said that the KP government had asked the federal government to revoke the decision about extension of Customs Act to Malakand division.
“We have suggested to the federal government to launch a duty-free scheme on new vehicles to tackle the issue of non-custom paid vehicles in Malakand division,” he said.
Earlier, Swat University VC Dr Jehan Bakht said that despite having no building of its own the university was expanding. “Over 2,500 students in 19 different departments are studying in the university,” he said. He demanded of the government to establish a hostel in Swat so that international researchers could come and stay here.
