PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has said that one step upgradation is being given to all the government employees from BPS-1 to BPS-16 with the aim to eliminate bribery and corruption at low level.

He revealed this while talking to a delegation of Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaf office-bearers from Peshawar district who called on him at the Chief Minister`s Secretariat here on Thursday.

The chief minister said that increasing salaries of employees according to international level was part of the PTI vision while his government was quite eager to enhance the pays and scales of all employees as soon as possible with the only condition of excellent performanceand delivering to masses.

However, he said that first they had to arrange and ensure availability of resources and for this purpose serious steps were being taken to improve the governance and financial discipline, and plug all loopholes of corruption.

According to a handout, the chief minister said that graph of corruption would drop considerably when the government employees would be paid to the level of satisfaction.

He regretted that meagre salaries were also the reason for escalating corruption in the past. He asked the employees to cooperate with the government in uprooting corruption and discharge theirduties honestly.

Mr Khattak directed the authorities to focus on provision of health, hygiene and other civic facilities in Peshawar and other cities of the province. He asked for taking action on complaints of the citizens besides telling them about progress on such complaints so that they could be involved in the development process.

He said that Rs50 million eachhad been provided to all the provincial constituencies in Peshawar city for replacement of the old water supply pipes and funds would be enhanced on need basis.

He asked for cleaning canals passing through the city so that healthy crops, fruits and vegetable could be provided to the people and they could be saved from diseases.

The delegation also gave suggestions for accelerating the pace of work on development schemes in the city. Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, deputy parliamentary leader of PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Khalid Masood, party`s provincial general secretary, MPA and district president Yasin Khalil and senior vice-president Zahid Nadeem were present on the occasion besides MCP administrator Zafar Ali Shah, WSSP chief executive Engr. Mohammad Naeem and heads of other relevant government departments. The delegation assured full cooperation to the chief minister in the city`s development affairs.

The chief minister said that thePTI workers had proved that their political awareness and discipline was better than workers of other political parties. He said that this unique quality had been accepted by all.

He said that his party worl(ers did not believe in the politics of plots and permits.

He said that they would accomplish the agenda of change as per the vision of PTI chairman Imran Khan and party manifesto. On demand of the delegation, he ordered immediate recruitment of female staff for ultrasound duty in all hospitals.

He said that giving autonomy to the hospitals, running them through independent boards and separating the cadres would considerably improve the health delivery system whereas Rs2 billion had been released to remove the deficiencies of staff, equipment and medicines.

Mr Khattak said that such steps were aimed at ensuring that the health institutions remained open round the clock for serving the people.