LAHORE - Punjab Cabinet which met here Thursday at a local hotel decided to develop Sambli (North) Reserve Forest in Salt Range as National Park. 

A formal notification in this regard was also issued after the meeting. Spreading over an area of 13,700 acres, cutting of trees and hunting would be banned in this park, and the land would not be utilized for any other purpose.

Chairing the 31st meeting of the provincial cabinet, Punjab Chief Minister  Sardar Usman Buzdar also directed to constitute a management committee to oversee the park affairs.

Also, the cabinet approved the appointment of Maj. (R) Azam Suleman as the provincial Ombudsman. Azam Suleman sought pre-mature retirement as federal secretary interior earlier this week to qualify for the post.  The cabinet also decided to constitute a committee under the chair of Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan to formulate interim wheat policy 2020-21. This committee will submit its policy recommendations for releasing wheat to the flour mills.

 The CM appreciated the performance of Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan as well as the Food Department for procuring record wheat reserves during the current season saying that bumper wheat stocks had been purchased for the first time after a gap of ten years.

The Chief Minister noted that Punjab government had now ample wheat reserves and full attention will be paid to providing relief to the common man while formulating wheat release policy. Buzdar maintained the incumbent government was creating ease for the indigent stratum and welfare of the impecunious families will be fully taken care of while formulating policy about the release of wheat to the flour mills. He also directed the ministers to proactively attend the budget session.

The cabinet also gave its approval for amendments in the Cooperative Societies Act, 1925 and The Punjab Undesirable Cooperative Societies Dissolution Act, 1993. 

Provincial Ministers, Advisors, Special Assistants, Chief Secretary and administrative secretaries attended the meeting.

Assembly members

call on CM

Provincial Ministers and MPAs called on Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar at his chamber set up in a local hotel here on Thursday and apprised him about their constituency related problems.

While issuing directions to solve their problems, the CM maintained that full attention had been paid to the development of backward areas. “I solve the problems of public representatives by considering them as my own and my doors are opened to all of you.

I am always available for public service. We deliver more but project it less”, he maintained.

The CM continued that the government had fully focused on the development of every area and asked the parliamentarians to work hard for the solution of public problems.

He maintained that Pakistan and the rest of the world have entered into a new phase due to the coronavirus pandemic but it was regrettable that Pakistani opposition was still living in the past and indifferent to the hazards of coronavirus.

The opposition leaders, he said, were following the practice of ‘criticism for the sake of criticism’ but the people had fully recognized their dual faces.   The CM reminded that those making hue and cry badly ignored the health sector in their tenures and could not develop even a single hospital where they could be treated today.

He claimed that the increase made in the health budget during the tenure of the PTI government had no resemblance in the past.

He observed that the point-scoring by opposition parties over the issue of coronavirus was condemnable as it was not the time to do politics but requires national unity.

The PTI leadership will continue to stand with the people in the larger public interest, the CM concluded.

Those who called on the CM included Provincial Ministers Muhammad Mohsin Leghari, Muhammad Ajmal Cheema, Shaukat Ali Laleka, MPAs Niaz Hussain Khan, Mian Alamdar Abbas Qureshi, Nawabzada Mansoor Ahmed Khan, Faisal Hayat, Shakeel Shahid, Muhammad Latif Nazar, Makhdoom Syed Iftikhar Gillani, Firdous Rahana, Sajida Begum, Sania Kamran, Shameem Aftab, Sajida Yusaf, Abida Bibi, Aon Dogar and others.

Chief Whip in Punjab Assembly Syed Abbas Ali Shah and Secretary Good Governance Committee Col (R) Ijaz Hussain Minhas were also present.