Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to overtake India in development as he reiterated that the country would work round the clock to progress.

“Without loans, we will change the fate of the country by striving day and night and shedding sweat and blood,” he said while addressing a public gathering in Dera Ghazi Khan on Saturday. “I do not believe in hollow slogans and promises to ensure progress and prosperity of the backward areas.”

The prime minister, expressing his views in the local Saraiki dialect, said that PML-N President Nawaz Sharif had a “strong relation” with this region.

Earlier, the prime minister unveiled the plaque of the upgradation project of Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari International Airport and performed the groundbreaking of dualization of 331km Indus Highway (N-55), Tranche-III of Rajanpur-DGKhan-DIKhan.

The completion of the project would enhance connectivity between the southern parts of Punjab with southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa via DIKhan and help boost economic, trade and business activities, officials said.

The prime minister, in his speech, also announced the construction of a cancer hospital in DG Khan and the establishment of a university in Rajanpur.

The prime minister said that an “era of progress and prosperity had dawned” upon the area in which the youth would get job opportunities.

Federal ministers Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Tanvir Hussain, Attaullah Tarar and Adviser to the PM on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah also accompanied the prime minister.

The prime minister also reiterated that seeking foreign loans was no solution to their economic issues and the country’s future.

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The prime minister also praised all the leaders of the region for working hard for the uplift of their respective areas and mentioned a minister for power who was “working hard to provide relief over power tariff by bringing reforms.”

The prime minister further said that for progress and development, peace was requisite.

“Without the elimination of terrorism, the country cannot move on the path of progress,” he said and without naming a political party, said mounting attacks on Islamabad in the past had caused “immense losses as one-day strike caused billion of losses to the national kitty.”

The prime minister also expressed the resolve that together, they would defeat the enemies of Pakistan.