The federal cabinet, after a six months period, approved the disbursement of Rs. 823 million to the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) to purchase boat engines for 3,291 poor fishermen of Gwadar.
Sources said that the federal cabinet on Wednesday under the chair of PM Shahbaz Sharif approved the disbursement of Rs. 823 million to the GPA to purchase boat engines for 3,291 poor fishermen of Gwadar.
The meeting was informed that the finance ministry would immediately release the amount to the GPA at the rate of Rs. 250,000 per head to buy a boat engine for each fisherman.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs would complete formalities to provide engines for fishing boats to deserving fishermen free of cost and to ensure that beneficiaries should be selected by a transparent ballot based on well-defined criteria.
The maritime ministry processed a project case to the Planning Commission to provide 2,000 engines to the fishermen at the cost of Rs. 500 million with an implementation period of one year.
On the request of the maritime ministry, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet allowed last week to withdraw the Planning Commission’s Form-1 (PC-I) and directed it to surrender the amount of Rs. 500 million already allocated for the initiative in the budget.
The Planning Commission was also directed to surrender an additional Rs. 322.75 million saved from other development projects.
