LAHORE, Jan 14: The Friday's sitting of the Punjab Assembly was unique in the history of the house, as it started almost in time. It had become a routine that the sitting would begin with a delay of at least half an hour until PPP legislator from Faisalabad Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan raised the issue on a point of order on Thursday.
However, to the discouragement of all when proceedings of the house started at 9:15 on Friday, there was only law minister Raja Muhammad Basharat to represent the treasury and Rana Aftab and Ijaz Samma on the opposition benches.
Regrettably, neither Punjab Prisons Minister Saeed Akbar Niwani nor parliamentary secretary Mehr Fazl Husain Sumra was present in the house, which was to take up questions about their department.
The situation was no good even in the gallery reserved for the officials, as no one was there to represent the prisons and the home departments (the latter was also to be discussed during the Question-Hour).
Mr Sumra, however, turned up after 10am but speaker Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal Sahi did not allow him to answer questions about his department as the chair had earlier ruled them as pending.
QUESTION-HOUR: Law minister Raja Basharat told the house that the housing scheme launched by the Faisalabad district police in the name of a police welfare society had been abandoned because the competent authority had not approved it.
Responding to a written query by Rana Aftab, the minister said the society had been got registered with the Social Welfare Department. He denied that District Police Officer Zafar Abbas Lak, a close relative of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, had forced his subordinates to purchase plots in the society at a price four times the original.
The scheme, he said, had been approved unanimously by members of the society during a meeting at the police lines on March 28, 2003, for provision of residential plots to policemen on easy instalments.
The house was told that orders had been issued for returning the amount spent out of the welfare fund of the employees. Rana Aftab asked what action had been taken against the police officer after he was found guilty of illegally initiating a project.
The Raja replied that the government could not initiate action for every single fault of government officials, as it would hamper smooth functioning of departments.
The PPP lawmaker, on a point of order, also raised the issues of misuse of blue light by police and other people, and use of stolen vehicles by the former. He demanded that a parliamentary committee should be formed to look into the issues.
The law minister admitted that police officials were misusing the blue light as well as stolen vehicles. However, he said, there was no need for constituting a committee as the government would take action against the violators.
GENERAL DISCUSSION: The house discussed report of the Punjab Public Service Commission for 2003. Rana Aftab said the commission's observations on health and education departments had exposed performance of the government, while defeat of the PPSC in 20 out of 71 litigation cases spoke volumes for its working.
All the opposition members, who took part in the discussion, criticized ignoring Urdu as medium of instruction. They said class-based education system had damaged interests of the have-nots, as they could not speak or write English correctly and fluently due to incapable teachers.
MMA's Waseem Akhtar, pointing out the level of unemployment, regretted that graduate and postgraduate youths were applying for posts of Naib Qasid. He demanded that the list of candidates shortlisted by the PPSC must be publicized to facilitate the people living in far-off areas. He opposed jobs on a contract which, he said, discouraged talent.
He also pointed out that student union elections were not being held despite a ruling of the Supreme Court. PPP's Samiullah Khan said only 1,398 vacancies were filled by the PPSC, though the government had claimed that it would create one million jobs in the province.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.