Finance to provide Rs5b to raise forces wings
Aftab Ahmed
Islamabad: The Finance division has agreed to provide Rs 5 billion to raise the wings of civil armed forces to stop the re-entry of terrorists from the borders of Afghanistan and Iran under western zone management under phase-3.
Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) will approve the release of funds in a meeting scheduled on Wednesday.
Armed Forces and Civil Armed Forces have been waging war against terrorism for the last 15 years and have made tremendous gains, and Zarb-e-Azab and more recently under Radd-ul-Fasaad.
The results of Operation Zarb-e-Azab/ Raad-ul Fasaad can only become sustainable if forces manage Pak-Afghan/Pak-Iran orders effectively and stop terrorists to re-enter Pakistan territory.
Prime Minister had approved raising of 73 x Wings and 2 x Frontier Corps Headquarters as part of National Action Plan. The government has already started the process of raising phase-I and Phase-II, whereas Phase-3 shall start in Financial Year 2020-21.
Accordingly, a summary regarding the raising of wings for capacity enhancement of Civil Armed Forces under Western Management was forwarded to the ECC of the Cabinet for approval during the financial Year 2019-20.
The ECC of the Cabinet approved/released funds to the tune of Rs.4.8 billion for the said wings.
The government had approved minimum Funds for each wing during the financial Year 2019-20 to initiate the raising process. However, the finance division had not yet released the remaining funds to complete the said process.
Sponsoring ministry had requested for release of remaining funds on a priority basis to complete the process of raising wings as well as to start Phase-III raising for capacity enhancement of Civil Armed forces under Western Zone Management.
Accordingly, the Interior Ministry had approached the Finance division for provision of Rs.10.3 billion (Priority-I) out of total to the tune of Rs.88.531 billion before referring the summary to ECC Cabinet for approval.
Finance Division in May 2021 agreed to provide Rs.5.000 billion to M/o Interior for Phase-III of raising from anticipated saving received from Ministries Divisions.
