PESHAWAR
Caretaker Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Muhammad Azam Khan has directed the authorities of Agriculture & Livestock Departments to develop linkages amongst research institutes, academia and farmers to pass-on the benefits of research activities to farmers.
He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of Agriculture and Livestock Departments here on Monday. The authorities concerned briefed the Caretaker Chief Minister about the development projects, administrative affairs achievements and issues being faced by these respective departments.
Caretaker Provincial Minister Abdul Haleem Qasuria, Principal Secretary to CM Amjad Ali Khan, Secretary Agriculture Israr Khan, Secretary Livestock Mukhtiar Ahmad and other relevant officials attended the meeting.
The chief minister was told that due to the freezing of development funds in the prevailing situation have affected certain time-bound activities of the departments adding that agriculture produce may be affected if the required funds are not released in time.
The Caretaker Chief Minister termed the agriculture and livestock sectors as of vital importance for the economic stability and said that every possible effort would be made to resolve the issues of these departments on priority basis.
He directed the quarters concerned to fix the priorities regarding requirement of funds for important ongoing development activities in both the sectors further directing them to pay special attention to modern research techniques and technology in the sectors.He further directed concerned authorities to work out the possibilities of partnership with relevant private sector entities to effectively carry out the activities of the agriculture sector including the construction of small dams, establishment of hatcheries etc in the province.
He also directed the quarter’s concerned to work out the possibilities for the revival of the cooperative sector and to come up with proposals for having a separate regulatory authority at provincial level on the analogy of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan for regulating matters related to medicines for livestock.
The chief minister lauded the overall performance of both the departments and directed for continued efforts in order to further strengthen these sectors.
