Chitral Times Report
PESHAWAR: Under the E-Governance strategy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, E-Bidding and E-Tendering system has been introduced in Public Health Engineering Department, whereas work is in progress on E-Work Order and E-Billing System, and by the end of June this year, E-Work Order system will be introduced with the aim to ensure efficiency and transparency in all the official matters of the department. Moreover, purchase of equipment has been completed and hiring of required staff is in progress for introducing Geographic Information System (GIS) in the department. Similarly, restructuring of the department is also in progress to enhance its overall working capacity, and under the restructuring of the department, additional 53 officers coupled with other supporting staff have been hired and posted to districts and Tehsil level across the province. With these initiatives there has been a significant improvement in the overall performance, public service delivery and revenue generation of the department.
This was told in a meeting of Public Health Engineering Department held here with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair to review the reform initiatives taken by the Department. Besides Secretary PHE , Zakir Hussain Afridi, the meeting was attended by other high ups of PHE, Finance and Planning Departments. The chief minister while expressing his satisfaction over the reform initiatives taken so far has directed the quarter concerned to prepare a realistic and viable master plan to resolve the drinking water supply issues on sustainable basis in southern districts further directing that all ongoing developmental and reform activities be completed within the stipulated timeframe.
Briefing about the performance of PHE Department, the forum was told that a total of 154 developmental schemes were being executed though out the province. So far 17 schemes out of total 69 due for completion schemes have been completed adding that master plan has been prepared for settled areas whereas master plan for merged areas was in progress. The meeting was told that under the solarization project, more than 1200 water supply schemes were solarized whereas work on other 250 drinking water supply schemes was in progress. It was informed that citizen facilitation centers have been established in Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad as a pilot project adding that eight water quality monitoring labs at each PHE circle and eight mobile water quality labs have been established while establishment of three water quality monitoring labs in merged areas was in progress. In order to further improve the service delivery, a Quick Response Unit has been established at Swat as pilot project and on successful results, the same will be replicated in other PHE divisions. Establishment of waste water treatment plan in D.I Khan is included in the draft of ADP 2021-22, if successful the same would be extended to Mardan and Charsadda.
The meeting was informed that legal framework and policies of department were being updated in line with modern requirements. Provincial Drinking Water Policy is being revised while work on amending Drinking Water Supply Scheme Act 1985 is underway. It was added that draft of Provincial Sanitation Policy has been finalized. The forum was apprised that a software had been developed for collecting water charges and would be made functional from upcoming financial year. It was told that a special campaign was launched for water charges recovery adding that special recovery teams had been formed in every division for recovery purpose.
