LAHORE - Amid opposition’s hullabaloo, Punjab Assembly passed four bills during Wednesday sitting, besides announcing filling the remaining vacant posts of doctors in provincial health department by the end of this year.
The bills passed are: The Punjab Public Private Partnership Bill 2014, The Punjab Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2014, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Engineering and Technology Multan Bill 2014 and the Punjab Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2014.
The house proceedings, which started with a delay of one hour and eighteen minutes with acting Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani in the chair, witnessed worst kind of uproar when the chair did not allow the opposition to move an out of turn adjournment motion concerning provision of development funds to all the opposition parties.
The acting speaker told the opposition benches he would allow them to move the adjournment motion if they follow the rules of business of the house. During the fuss over this issue, the treasury moved the said bills without incorporating the amendments of the opposition, as they didn’t listen to the chair who asked them to discuss their proposed amendments; and all the four bills were passed without any debate.
Led by the PTI MPs, opposition members of PPP, PML-Q and JI encircled speaker’s rostrum and chanted slogans against the government, ripping the copies of the agenda. They also chanted slogans like ‘Nara-e-Takbeer and Nara-e-Rasalat’ in the house which created the impression that opposition has launched an attack against an enemy at the border.
Opposition Leader Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed on a point of order raised the issue of the development funds for the opposition legislators and asked the acting speaker to accommodate their out of turn adjournment motion on this issue.
The chair told him that he had not received his adjournment motion on the matter yet and ensured him that he would inform him when he would receive it.
Being unsatisfied at this assurance, Rasheed started the protest that led to the extreme commotion in the house.
Earlier, Parliamentary Secretary on Health Khawaja Imran Nazir while replying to queries said that health department would fill all the vacancies in his department by the end of the year – including the remaining vacancies of male and female doctors. He said that health department through PPSC had already recruited 2,000 male and 800 female doctors.
Khawaja Imran claimed that land acquired for the Multan Cardiology Unit had not been given to any other department and the project was being executed successful. Admitting that provincial government had not been completely successful in providing health facilities to the masses, he claimed that government would meet its targets on this count by the end of the year.
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on a point of order informed the house about the Pemra decision to close a private TV channel, saying that it was not a decision of Pemra but just an opinion of five members of the authority as the authority itself has clarified.
He said that this it was not a matter of the jobs of journalists but an issue of democracy and freedom of press.