ISLAMABAD: The Lower House on Monday recommended that the government should properly equip the National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP) to meet the requirements of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Communications called the CPEC a game-changer that would bring prosperity to the country after its fully implementation.
The meeting was presided over by Muhammad Muzammil Qureshi, chairman of the Standing Committee on Communications. The committee was informed that Western Route of the CPEC had been divided in to five zones and work had been started on all five zones. The FWO, NLC and some other contractors have started working on the site and the Western Route would be completed by June-2018, the committee was informed.
Though the committee expressed some reservations over the Western Route, which ignored some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the government assured the members that there was no change in the Western Route and it should be completed on a priority basis.
The committee was shown the aerial view of the onsite progress of the construction work, which was captured with the help of drone technology. The committee was informed that more than 10,000 people were needed to meet the requirements of all newly built highways, motorways and the CPEC. The committee directed that creation of the required posts and appointment against vacancies on merit should be completed by December 2017.
The committee was also informed that the prime minister had announced 20 percent of basic pay as special pay for employees of the motorway police, but only 10 percent was paid.
The committee took very serious notice of it and observed that it was very objectionable, because the prime minister had announced some benefits to employees of a department but the bureaucracy was creating hurdles.
The committee directed that the remaining 10 percent of the allowance should be paid to the employees of the National Highway and Motorway Police forthwith. Similarly, it was brought to the notice of the committee that the special allowance was being paid to employees of the National Highway and Motorway Police equal to their basic pay.
But the same had been frozen in the basic pay of 2008. The committee directed that the special pay allowance should be given according to the current basic pay.
The meeting was attended by MNAs Engr Hamidul Haq Khalil, Usman Khan Tarrakai, Salim Rehman, Sahibzada Tariq Ullah, Nazir Ahmed Bughio, Molana Qamaruddin, Dr Darshan, Ramesh Lal, Sanjay Perwani, Maiza Hameed and Shahid Tarar. Several senior officers of the motorway police also attended the meeting.
