QUETTA: Balochistan Minister for Information Technology Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran informed the Balochistan Assembly on Thursday that the provincial government had approved the Quetta Safe City Project (QSCP) that would cost Rs2.28 billion.

Speaking on a resolution jointly moved by opposition members Nasarullah Zerey, Sham Lal and Shahina Bibi, he said safe city projects for Gwadar and all divisional and district headquarters of the province would also be launched soon.

He said the QSCP was pending for long, adding work on the project would start soon.

The opposition members through the resolution demanded that the Balochistan Assembly should be converted into an e-assembly as was done for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

Deputy Speaker Sardar Babar Khan Musakhail — who presided over the session — and members on treasury benches supported the call. The resolution was adopted without any opposition.

Though Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani was present in the house, Mr Khetran took the floor and informed the house about the government’s plan for the QSCP.

He said the government would soon establish an IT village in Quetta for which Rs500 million had been allocated, adding that land for the purpose would be provided soon. In the IT village, he said, educated youths would be provided technical training.

The assembly adopted another resolution moved by Malik Naseer Ahmed Shahwani, parliamentary leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal. The resolution called upon the government to increase the maximum age limit for government jobs from 40 to 43 years.

Mr Khetran informed the house that the government had already taken a decision in this regard and the age limit had been increased from 40 to 43 years.

The house adopted two more resolutions. One was moved by opposition member Malik Sikandar Khan who urged the government to make the highway police more efficient on the Quetta-Karachi highway so that incidents could be avoided.

The other resolution was moved by Haji Mohammad Nawaz who demanded natural gas supply to Gulistan and Qila Abdullah.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2018