KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet on Monday approved the Sindh Covid-19 Emergency Relief Ordinance, 2020 to provide relief to the people and mitigate the challenges emanating from the province-wide lockdown.

The cabinet meeting was attended by all provincial ministers, advisers, the chief secretary and other officials concerned.

Briefing the cabinet, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the provincial government had proposed the ordinance to put in place all necessary measures to help respond to the people affected by Covid-19 by providing relief to them.

He said that the ordinance would be sent to the Sindh governor for approval.

A government spokesperson said that the Sindh Covid-19 Emergency Relief Ordinance, 2020 would provide equal relief to domestic residential and commercial tenants, employees and daily-wages workers; extending deadlines associated with responding to school fees, rent and utility charges, conduct of trial or indictment and extension of period for performance of duties by the court or an office.

20pc reduction in schools’ fee

According to the relief envisaged in the ordinance, no educational institution shall charge more than 80 per cent of the total monthly fees. No employee or worker shall be laid off, terminated or removed and the employee shall be paid salary by the employers. The salary amount and the deduction, if necessary, is given in schedule-I of the ordinance.

All utility providers falling within the territorial jurisdiction of the government shall provide concession (schedule-II of the ordinance) in the utility services to all domestic, residential and commercial consumers.

Govt gives tax exemptions to traders, reduces school fee; Murad says ordinance is being sent to governor

A landlord shall defer or suspend the recovery of the rent of the premises for payable amount as indicated in schedule-III; provided that the same shall not apply in case where the owner is widow, differently abled person and senior citizen.

The government may provide exemption in the provincial taxes, duties, fees, cess, levies and charges.

In case of non-compliance with the ordinance different penalties have been defined.

Commissioners get magisterial powers

The cabinet approved a proposal to authorise the home secretary and all divisional commissioners to perform the powers under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

On the request of the home department, the cabinet approved a proposal to authorise jail superintendent to grant 72-hour temporary parole to an undertrial prisoner(s) to attend death of his/her blood relative.

The cabinet also authorised the home department to grant temporary parole to prisoner(s), undertrial prisoners/convicts for 72 hours to attend marriage of blood relative or visit seriously ill blood relatives.

The cabinet approved one-time waiver of the Sindh Sales Tax on the commission payable to the branchless banking retailers disbursing the cash financial assistance provided under the Ehsaas Kafalat programme of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

The Sindh cabinet also approved exemption of tax and duties on import and transfer of machines and equipment for the Gwadar Hospital project.

The cabinet accorded ex-post facto approval of all the notifications, circulars and standard operating procedures issued by the home secretary, law secretary and other secretaries of administrative departments under the Sindh Epidemic Disease Act 2014.

Financial woes

Briefing the cabinet about the fiscal position of the province, the chief minister said that the Federal Board of Revenue had set a target of Rs5.5 trillion collection but now they were expecting Rs3.9tr collection in which the share of the Sindh government was cut down from Rs835 billion to Rs602bn, showing a shortfall of Rs233bn.

He said that keeping in view the present financial position he had decided to cut off non-development expenditures by Rs170bn.

Talking about the annual development programme, the chief minister said that it had also been cut down from Rs228bn to only Rs93bn this year.

85 die in Sindh due to Covid-19

About coronavirus, the chief minister said that it was spreading fast from Karachi to Kashmore.

He said that 341 more cases emerged when 2,733 tests were conducted, which was 12.6pc of the tests conducted.

The health department had conducted so far 43,949 tests against which 4,956 cases were diagnosed, which constitute 11.2pc of the tests.

He said that four more patients lost their lives and the number of deaths stemming from the coronavirus had reached 85, which was 1.7pc of the total patients.

He added that 24 patients were in critical condition and 16 others were already on ventilators.

The CM said that at present 3,946 patients were under treatment, including 2,705, or 68pc, in home isolation, 825, or 21pc, at isolation centres and 416, or 11pc, in different hospitals.

He said that 269 of the 341 new cases belonged to Karachi. They include district Central 20, East 90, Korangi 40, Malir 30, South 50 and West 39 cases.

He added that despite serious efforts the people living in slums of the city were not observing social distancing.

He said Khairpur had 23 cases, Larkana 12, Hyderabad 12, Ghotki eight, Sukkur four, Dadu three, Matiari two, Jacobabad, Umerkot and Dadu one case each.

Wheat procurement conditions waived off

The cabinet was told that the procurement of 1.4 million tonnes of wheat at a rate of Rs1,400 per 40kg had been started. The department had achieved 33.55pc target by procuring 469,673 tonnes.

It was pointed out that the conditions of presenting land documents such as pass book, Form-7 and verification of documents by local councils and mukhtiarkars were causing problems in smooth procurement process.

At this, the cabinet on the request of Food Minister Hari Ram waived the conditions imposed on procurement of wheat from growers.

The chief minister directed the food department to achieve the target and even if they had the capability of exceeding the target he would appreciate it.

He said that he had reports that the locust swarm attacks on the standing crops would multiply in the next cropping years. “Just after coronavirus the locus swarm attacks would be another disaster,” he said.

Measures against locusts

Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu and Secretary Raheem Soomro briefed the cabinet about the locust control and threat issues.

The cabinet was informed that the provincial government had released Rs335.095 million to the agriculture department to spray the crops against which the department utilised Rs181.638m on the purchase of 22 spray vehicles, 300 sprayers, 1,000 hand sprayers, 50,000 Emulsifiable Concentrate (EC) to combat the locust issue.

It was further informed that still Rs153.457m was available with the department. The agriculture department had constituted 57 teams at district and taluka level and sprayed the crops. As far as spray of the desert areas was concerned it was the job of the federal government’s plant protection department.

The chief minister was told that 12 aircraft were required to spray the desert areas of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab. The federal government under its National Action Plan had decided to purchase six aircraft but that purchase had not been made so far.

The cabinet urged the federal government to purchase/hire six choppers to start spray in the deserts of Sindh and Balochistan, otherwise it would play havoc with upcoming crops. The locusts had settled in the desert of Sindh and with the start of monsoon they would breed, the cabinet was told.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2020