ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday said the government was firm on its policy of utilising the dead public assets for the welfare and betterment of masses and using their income for boosting the pace of economic development and creating job opportunities.

He was presiding over a meeting held here about the utilisation of public lands in Punjab for public welfare purposes, particularly, the assets under the control of Punjab Cooperative Board for Liquidation (PCBL).

The meeting was attended by Law Minister Dr Muhammad Farogh Naseem, Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar, Punjab Minister for Cooperative Mehr Muhammad Aslam Bharwana, Punjab Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, Chief Secretary Punjab Yusuf Naseem Khokhar and other senior officers.

The Prime Minister regretted that in a country where the major chunk of economy and resources was used for repaying foreign debt, non-utilisation of public assets in the past in an effective manner, was a criminal negligence.

He directed the PCBL administration as well as the Punjab Law Minister to speed up the efforts for early completion of the court cases about public assets and take all necessary measures in that respect.

The Prime Minister said the government, which took the rein of power in the hardest economic conditions, had to take difficult decisions for bringing about improvement in economy.

He, however, added that with stabilization in the country’s economy at present, positive results of those decisions have started appearing.

The Prime Minister said that in order to providing relief to masses, speeding-up the economic process and specially for creating job opportunities for youth, there was a need to further pace-up the efforts.

Chairperson PCBL Bushra Aman briefing the {PM} said that PCBL had a total of 293 assets under its control, out of which 98 assets consisting of agricultural, commercial and residential properties were immediately available for auction.

The worth of those properties was in hundreds of billions of rupees, while cases regarding the rest of assets were pending in different courts, she added.

The Prime Minister was told that the new PCBL administration had regained worth billions of rupees’ assets from illegal occupation during the last six months.—APP