RECORDER REPORT

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has in principle agreed to the CDIA support to the up gradation of different facilities in three districts of the province. The three districts included Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad where social services would be upgraded and the whole up-gradation process would be shared by the Asian Development Bank.

He was presiding over a meeting at the Chief Minister Secretariat Peshawar, on the Integrity Development Strategy for inclusive urban growth program and the Asian Development Assistance for upgraded facilities including drinking facilities, solid waste management and waste water treatment and disposal, the establishment of community mobilization unit, training and technical assistance and participatory planning, training on waste reduction behaviors and customers to willingness to pay for the facilities and the institutional reforms.

The participants included Senior Minister for Local Government, Inayatullah, Additional Chief Secretary Azam Khan, administrative secretaries, DCs of Mardan & Abbottabad, District Nazim Peshawar Arbab Asim and high ups of the concerned departments who were briefed about the CDIA plan for the upgraded facilities in Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad.

CDIA would focus on infrastructure, investment, prioritization, project implementation and its operational maintenance etc. The participants were also briefed about the working of CDIA, its planning for operationalization and its integrated development strategy, directly linking infrastructure investment with measureable, social & environmental benefits.

The meeting was also briefed about the interactions at social, community, local and provincial levels. Under the inclusive urban growth program, the total need for Abbottabad is $121 million, $121 million for Mardan and $294 million for Peshawar. The funds will be allocated in the sectors of water supply, solid waste, sewerage, transport etc in these three districts. In the first phase of the program, the project would cost $128 million to be jointly shared as $100 million by Asian Development Bank and $28 million by the KP Government.

The presentation also focused on the need driven creation of the facilities in social sectors, the capacity building of the operational staff, the plan for the implementation of the project and its sustainability with focus on the behavior change for the cost recovery to ensure sustainability of different facilities once created.

Chief Minister agreeing to the original concept of the project for upgraded facilities in social sectors to be created in three districts of the province, directed to go whole hog for the preliminary spade work including the original frame of the project, its budgetary requirements and planning the implementation stage. Chief Minister also asked to make project more feasible and sustainable. The government would certainly spend on creating a facility but there should be a changed behavior among the end users of the facility to pay in order to ensure that the facility would be sustainable in future as well.

Pervez Khattak directed the P&D department to move ahead, negotiate the project at the proper forum as he has already given a green signal to the project. He asked the local and the district governments to make a plan to coordinate with each other about the new concept, its implementation and operationalization in the three districts.