Islamabad: August 20, 2018: Newly appointed federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar paid his maiden visit to his office in the ministry in P Block, Pak Secretariat, Islamabad. While assuming his duties the federal Minister chaired where he was briefed on details of the federal development portfolio and status of Public Sector Development Program funds, releases and the ongoing projects across the country in different sectors and several initiatives directly managed under the ministry of Planning, Development & Reform. Secretary PDR, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui gave a detailed briefing to the Minister on the aforementioned areas. The Secretary was assisted by the senior officials of the  ministry and the project directors of the initiatives begging executed by the ministry of PDR. While talking to the officials of the ministry, the federal Minister maintained that the government was all set to make human development, public health, women and child health, nutrition, water resources and dams, youth, female education, promotion of small scale and large scale business for the youth, inviting more investment and promotion of tourism across the countries are top priorities of the PTI government and vision of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He urged that the economic and domain experts from the ministry of PDR have to work hard to achieve goals and for this purpose they are under obligation to devise short term and long term strategy with clearly defined milestones. Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar emphasised that the ministry has to focus only on taking the new initiatives but they have to ensure qualitative delivery and ensure measures which save public money in a cost effective manner. Meanwhile, Minister for planning development and reform chaired a meeting to have a briefing on CPEC projects.

Secretary planning Shoaib Siddiqui and PD CPEC gave him a comprehensive briefing on current status of projects and future plans. The Minister gave directions on focus areas including SEZs and the projects for the socio-economic uplift of a commo man in less c developed areas especially in projects Gawadar. He emphasised on capacity building programs and vocational training under CPEC to benefit in different areas of human development.