Maryam Nawaz sets December 15 opening for Jhelum school of eminence

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif said the Nawaz Sharif School of Eminence in Jhelum will open on 15 December 2026, and that Green Bus services will start in Dina, Sohawa and Pind Dadan Khan in January 2027.

She gave the dates at a ceremony in Jhelum where Honhaar Scholarships and laptops were handed to students, ARY News reported.

The provincial government is setting up 300 Nawaz Sharif Schools of Eminence across Punjab with air-conditioned classrooms, laboratories and qualified teachers, she said. She challenged critics to name a public-sector school outside Punjab with comparable facilities.

More than 50,000 schools in Punjab are teaching millions of children, she said. Students travel free on Green Buses across the province, and more than 100,000 scooters are being given to students along with training, she said.

She said patients receive free stents and pacemakers at the Jhelum Cath Lab, and that catheterisation laboratories have been set up in 25 smaller districts so patients no longer travel to Rawalpindi or Lahore for specialist heart treatment. A man working in Dubai had come from Faisalabad to Jhelum for a stent on his sister's advice, she said.

Under the Apni Chhat, Apna Ghar programme, loans have been given for 250,000 homes in the past 18 to 24 months, she said. She cited a Jhelum woman who once paid Rs15,000 a month in rent and now pays Rs14,000 in instalments towards a home of her own.

Punjab's largest public-sector cancer hospital is being built in Lahore, she said. Thousands of kilometres of roads have been constructed, and she said her government had broken with the practice of keeping projects in major cities, citing visits to Sahiwal, Attock and Mandi Bahauddin. She said opponents had failed to complete the Lillah-Jhelum Road in four years.

On corruption, she said: "I will not spare any minister if evidence of corruption emerges against them." She acknowledged corruption had not been eliminated in Punjab and said her government would recover misused public money, while accusing opponents of not addressing the issue during 13 to 14 years of rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"Those who have objections should explain why they are sitting as ministers. Why don't they resign and go home?" she asked.

On the by-elections in Gujranwala and Sahiwal, she said all opposition parties had joined forces and proscribed organisations had tried to influence the result, but the PML-N won. "People have grown tired of rhetoric and empty promises," she said.

Referring to an alleged assault on a salesgirl at a garment shop, she said: "No influential person can dare to assault a poor citizen now."