BADIN: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan has stopped talking about division of Sindh since the moment they have been invited to be coalition partners with Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh government.

MQM-P would never raise demand for a separate province after they had joined the provincial government and “this is why we have offered them to join us and quit Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in the Centre,” said the chief minister while talking to journalists after inaugurating Physical Rehabilitation Centre at Indus Hospital here on Monday.

He expressed the hope that MQM-P leadership would respond to them in a positive manner within next few days or weeks as the PPP wanted them to be partners in serving people of the province in a much better way.

Shah said in answer to a question that there was a mafia in education boards. “We, therefore, created a separate department for universities and boards which has controlled tampering with answer copies to a great extent,” he said.

About bulldozing of katcha houses built on dykes of irrigation canals, the chief minister said that the cabinet had already taken decision that the houses would not be removed until and unless alternative arrangements had been made for settling the displaced. However, from now onwards nobody would be allowed to encroach upon state land at any cost, he said.

He said that he was working hard to establish peoples’ right on natural gas being produced in the province and already “out of eight members on the Council of Common Interests five have supported his proposal for implementing Article 158 of the Constitution.”

He blamed the federal plant protection department for the continued existence and sporadic attacks of locusts in the province and said the department’s aircraft was out of order and it had no funds for carrying out aerial spray.

“Sindh government released Rs10 million to [it to] start the drive, still it failed to launch it within time.” He had now issued directives to agriculture minister to hire aircraft from UAE and China to spray deserts where the insect had settled and started breeding, he said.

Shah said the rehabilitation centre in Badin was the fourth in Pakistan where artificial limbs were prepared and fixed to patients. “The centre established at a cost of Rs50m, of which 50 per cent had been donated by philanthropists, provides great services to the poor in lower region of the province,” he said.

He deplored that fresh medical graduates often lacked dedication. There was shortage of doctors, nurses and technicians in hospitals all over Sindh and “we have appointed 6,000 doctors still the shortage persists,” he said.

He said that in an effort to overcome the shortage, he had offered several incentives to doctors working abroad but hardly a few of them responded. Most of the doctors had joined politics and civil service but they always took pride in adding ‘doctor’ to their names, said Shah in a lighter vein while addressing Dr Sikandar Mandhro.

Sindh Minister for Agriculture Ismail Rahu, MNA Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, Senator Dr Sikandar Ali Mandhro, MPAs Taj Mohammad Mallah, Bashir Ahmed Halepoto, Mir Allah Bux Talpur, Tanzeela Qambrani and others were also present at the inauguration ceremony.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2020