PESHAWAR: Provincial Minister for Religious Affairs, Auqaf and Minorities Habibur Rehman Khan on Friday said about Rs 222 million were proposed for his department in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the upcoming budget 2016-17 with focus on rehabilitation of mosques, purchase of land for graveyards and construction of funeral places in the province.
Talking to state-run media, he said the upcoming budget would be pro-poor and peoples’ friendly with maximum relief to labourers, farmers and government employees. He said the government has been approached to include the up gradation of Abdul Wali Khan University campus Buner to a full fledged university with request to allocate money for it in ADP 2016-17. “I held a detailed meeting with Chief Minister KP who assured to upgrade Abdul Wali Khan University Campus Buner to a full fledged university and include it ADP” he added.
The minister said three new projects including rehabilitation of mosques, purchase of land for graveyards and construction of funeral place have been proposed for the upcoming budget. He said renovation work on historical Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar will commence this year with an estimated cost of Rs 76 million.
He said renovation of Mohabat Khan Mosque would be done without affecting its original architectural design. Referring about ongoing projects including construction of boundary walls around graveyards to save its land from encroachment, rehabilitation of mosques and registered religious seminaries and scholarships for Muslims students, the minister said work on these projects were in full swing and would be completed this year.
He said directives have been issued to the heads of nation building departments of Buner district to ensure timely completion of the ongoing schemes so that dwellers of the district could benefit from them.
