As many as 230 vacancies of different medical specialists are vacant in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Health Department, including those in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) since many years.
This was claimed by health officials of the KP in a document, copy of which available with Daily Times, submitted before a Senate body on States and Frontier Region (SAFRON).
Besides this, they claimed that there is also an acute shortage of ambulance vehicles in merged districts of KP. However, the provincial government is planning to purchase 50 more ambulances for countering emergencies. “The department is offering 0.45 million salary for doctors having specialized background while 0.3 million salary offering for medical officers to ensure better facilities in health sector in conflict hits region”, they said.
The Senator Hilal-u-Rehman alleged that many doctors went on payroll of Polio program. “The Health Department should submit credentials of those doctors to the committee”, he directed.
The committee surfaced the issue of doubling of quota in National College of Arts (NCA) for erstwhile FATA students on which the officials responded that there are various barricades while implementing the doubling of quota.
During meeting, the committee highlighted that doubling of quota for erstwhile Fata students was the decision of the federal cabinet and should be implemented in true senses. It was decided to call Chairman Higher Education, Principal of NCA and other officials concerned of the college in the next meeting of committee to briefing on the issue.
The committee was briefed by the Additional Chief Secretary KP regarding the supplying of Sui gas in merged districts of the province and added that supplying gas to these areas was approved by the federal cabinet but the relevant ministry didn’t inform us regarding this approval on which committee decided to call officials of SNGPL for briefing.
The panel was briefed by the officials regarding development saga in terrorism hits tribal region on which the officials told that the government is focusing on development in these regions and 16 billion rupees already approved for development adding that 4 billion rupees approved in ADP as well. The senate body lamented on load shedding of electricity in tribal areas and directed the officials to work on this issue on which the officials responded that in tribal district demand of electricity is 800 MW while the system has only capacity of 200 MG. The body directed the officials to strengthen the infrastructure of electricity in the area on emergency basis.
The parliamentary body also surfaced the illegal hiring of people in health sector of the Khyber district in violations of the Public Procurement Regulation (PPRA) on which the health officials of the KP that they have been transferred as well show cause notice has been served to all on which committee suggested that the account branch representative should be called to the next meeting to dig this scam that on which ground people were recruited in violation of PPRA and no advertisement was placed in any newspaper regarding these positions. The chair of committee decided to call the chief secretary and health secretary of KP for briefing on illegal recruitment of people in health sector. The committee mentioned that a mafia is active in the area, illegally hiring people in violation of PPRA regulations.
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