From Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR
As an important step to make the provincial capital a safe city, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to execute the Peshawar Safe City project in different phases. In the first phase, implementation of this project will start as a pilot project from Hayatabad which will be extended to other areas of the city in the next phases. The decision was made in a high-level meeting held here on Monday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair. Besides provincial cabinet members Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, Chief Secretary Dr. Shehzad Bangash, Inspector General of Police Muazzam Jah Ansari, Principal Secretary to CM Amjad Ali Khan, Secretary finance Ikramullah Khan, Secretary home Khushal Khan, Capital City Police Officer Muhammad Ijaz and other concerned officials attended the meeting. The meeting decided that plan for the implementation of the pilot project would be finalized within a week while consultancy for the implementation of the pilot project would be completed within a month whereas the pilot project would be completed by the end of this year. It was also decided that the project would be implemented through open tendering. Briefing the meeting about various aspects of the pilot project, it was informed that a preliminary survey of Hayatabad has been completed to this end. As per the survey report, about 500 CCTV cameras would be installed at 96 different points of Hayatabad while 56 km long fiber optic cable would be laid to integrate the CCTV cameras. It was also told that after the successful completion of the pilot project in Hayatabad, it would be extended to other areas of the city. On the occasion, the Chief Minister directed the quarters concerned to advertise consultancy for the pilot project as soon as possible and said that execution of safe city project was imperative so as to make Peshawar a safe city. He added that the provincial government would provide all the required resources for this purpose. The chair also directed the concerned quarters to fulfill their respective shares of responsibilities well in time in order ensure the implementation of the project without further delay. He also directed the concerned authorities to strictly adhere to the prevailing rules and regulations and ensure transparency in all respects while executing the project.
