PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan directed directed the tourism department to workout a strategy within a week for outsourcing the feasible rest houses and other assets already handed over to tourism department.
The Chief Minister directed that revenue generation plan for such assets to be outsourced. He was chairing a review meeting regarding development projects in tourism sector of the province on Saturday. He also ordered immediate ban on construction activities in tourist destination of the province until master planning is finalised to stop haphazard constructions.
Principal Secretary to chief minister Amjad Ali Khan, Secretary Tourism Muhammad Tahir Orakzai, Secretary Communications and Works Ejaz Ansari and other relevant authorities attended the meeting.The Chief Minister ordered to finalise the master plan for tourists sites in minimum possible time and fully functional the development authorities already set up for tourist areas. Khan urged the need for short term, mid term and long term plans to start practical work on mega schemes of tourism sector and complete the ongoing ones within the stipulated time.
Briefing the meeting about progress on projects of road infrastructure in tourist areas, it was informed that tenders of 22-km Mankiyal to Baddha Serai Road and 24-km Thandiani Roads have been issued and practical work would start soon. Both the projects would be completed with an estimated cost of Rs7.8 billion.
The meeting was informed that the KP Integrated Tourism Development Projects had been launched with an estimated cost of Rs17 billion to develop new tourist spots, construct access roads to tourist destinations, rehabilitate the existing tourism infrastructures and enhance the capacity of tourism departments for sustainable development of tourism sector in the province.
The CM was told that concept papers and master planning of Integrated Tourism Zones had been cleared by the competent forum which would soon be handed over to Culture and Tourism Authority for further progress. Similarly, Destinations Investment Management Plan have also been cleared and the same will be handed over to the special purpose development authorities by the end of this month.
The meeting was further informed that so far an amount of Rs1.6 billion has been released to various special purpose development authorities to boost tourism activities.
The Chief Minister directed for joint meeting of all the stakeholders including tourism department, Communications and Works Departments, Irrigation Department, Forest Department, divisional and district administration and local development authorities to resolve inter department issues so that tourism development initiatives could be completed in an efficient manner within stipulated time.
