ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday directed the provincial chief secretaries to do away with the patwari and corruption culture in the province by digitizing the land transfer and other processes.
Chairing the weekly meeting of National Coordination Committee for Housing, Construction and Development here, the prime minister instructed for strict punishment to the corrupt elements and those creating unnecessary hurdles for the masses.
Information Minister Senator Shibli Faraz, special assistants to the PM Zulfiqar Bukhari and Dr Shahbaz Gill, Naya Pakistan Housing Authority Chairman Lt General (Retd) Anwar Ali Haider, State Bank Governor Raza Baqir, federal secretaries and prominent figures related to the construction business attended the meeting, which was joined by the chief secretaries through video link.
Expressing satisfaction over the efforts to ease approval processes for the construction sector, the prime minister directed for introduction of beneficial and user-friendly online systems across all the provinces.
He called for finalizing Karachi’s Master Plan at the earliest to control the haphazard growth and construction in the city.
He also emphasized special focus on urban forestry to cope with the negative impacts of environmental pollution and climate change.
Addressing the business community representatives, the prime minister said the government was resolved to address the issues faced by their community at the earliest. The government, he added, would also welcome the proposals from the relevant people for promotion of the construction industry.
The prime minister was updated about the progress on the review of master plans of different cities of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Sindh chief secretary said the master plans of 17 cities were under review, of those three had been finalized, six would be completed by December while those of the rest eight would get finality by June 2021. Moreover, work on the Karachi Master Plan 2047 would be started by December this year.
Briefing the meeting on progress and timeline for review of Peshawar, Mardan and other cities’ master plans, the KP chief secretary said they were also designing the master plans of merged districts.
The Punjab chief secretary apprised the meeting of a web portal launched to facilitate the investors of construction sector by easing approval processes and reducing human intervention.
It was told that similar portals were also being designed for the Federal Capital, KP and Sindh provinces.

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