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High priority

being given to

communications,

energy: Benazir

NOWSHERA: Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said here on Wednesday that extension of communications links will prepare the ground for achieving the task of economic prosperity in the country.

Addressing the ground-breaking ceremony of the Nowshera Bypass project, the Prime Minister said, the project would smoothen the flow of traffic on Peshawar-Lahore-Karachi National Highway.

The present government, she said, attached high priority to communications and energy, because these two sectors played a key role for economic uplift of the country.

Another important aspect of this project is that after Lahore and Hyderabad bypasses and Salahuddin Chatha overhead bridge in Wazirabad, this is the fourth big project which is being started now.

The Prime Minister said, the government desired that no province should remain behind in development activities.

Allround development and economic progress, she said, go together and without extending communications links, the task of economic prosperity could not be achieved.

Instead of seeking loans, she said, her government preferred to rely on the country's own resources, so that national achievement is made possible.

Benazir said construction of Nowshera By-pass is another step aimed at enhancing the prestige of Pakistan. She said, Pakistan is rich in natural resources and its people are hard-working.

But, she lamented that these resources were not properly exploited.

The Prime Minister said, the Nowshera By-pass project is a part of extension project of the grand national highway which is the lasting memoir of the times of great progressive Muslim ruler Sher Shah Suri, she said.

Addressing the ceremony, Secretary Communications Mohammad Sher Khan said the present government attached importance to highways and keeping in view the public desires undertook a number of highways projects, and that the highways system was improved.

Chairman, National Highway Authority Shahid Aziz Siddiqi, addressing the ceremony said, after coming to power the present government has drawn up a comprehensive plant to improve the communications system in the country. He said, provision of transportation facilities according to the requirements of the time is essential for the development of the country.

Premier Benazir said some anti-state elements are trying to foment division in the country on behest of their foreign mentors but expressed her government's resolve to foil all such conspiracies.

"We will thwart all external and internal designs hatched against Pakistan and its people", she said.

She said the anti-state forces intend to spread hatred in the country on ethnic, sectarian and linguistic lines. But, "we will fight them out", she asserted.

She said her government is ready to take any challenge but will never compromise on principles.

She held out strong warning to the drug-traffickers and those involved in arms proliferation in the country that her government would strictly deal with them. "We welcome criticism but will not allow breach of law and the use of hand grenades and rocket launchers in any part of the country - be it Karachi, Malakand or Bara", she added.

The Prime Minister said drug mafia incited trouble in Malakand but her government strictly dealt with it.

She said previous governments had been lenient towards the drug mafia but, "we will not give them free hand. The drug traffickers must keep in mind they will either be arrested or extradited".

She urged people to extend all out support to her government in its fight against negative forces.

She said that the present government has waged a jehad against the drug barons, smugglers and anti-state elements and vowed that all of them will be curbed with an iron hands.

Referring to the menace of narcotics, she said that this will not be tolerated adding that they will be sternly handled or extradited.-APP/PPI