LAHORE – The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is all-out for the creation of another province in southern Punjab whose territorial stretch will be more than 52 per cent of the total area of the province with 32 per cent population, which is far less than that of the rest of Punjab.
The PPP says the new province will comprise 22 districts of the Punjab that exceeds the territorial limit of the rest of the province, however with much less population.
The official statistics of 2010 count Punjab’s population at 93 million, 32 per cent of which lives in south Punjab. In this way, the proposed province will have a population higher than that of Balochistan; although it rubs shoulders with this largest area-wise province of the country in backwardness and shortage of facilities. The ratio of urban population in south Punjab is markedly thin than that of the rest of Punjab and migrated and settlers, who principally are agriculturalists, constitutes a huge number of it.
In order to integrate all factions into one whole with an object to raise their living standard and bring them at par with others and knit them into the mainstream of country, a systematic and comprehensive planning and working will be required. The PPP is so far stressing on the creation of the province and it has yet to come up with a comprehensive programme to address the problems and deprivations of the region’s population as well as to put a system in place for the said purpose so that the new province remains centripetal to development unlike the situation in Balochistan.
The PPP coordinator to President Asif Ali Zardari, Naveed Chaudhry says the new province in southern Punjab will have the same territorial limits for which the party had already formed a separate body bifurcating Punjab last year.
Naveed says the Janoobi Punjab province will comprise three divisions - Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan - which represent 22 districts of a total of districts in Punjab.
On the capital of the new province, he said the party had yet to reflect on this matter and a final decision would be taken keeping in view aspirations of the majority. Either Multan or Bahawalpur would be the capital of the new province, he added. According to Naveed, if the Punjab government shows disinterest in the creation of another province in south Punjab, the matter will be taken over by the federal government, which will itself go for the creation of new province through the 21st amendment, thus overlooking the province. However, the Centre still wants the Punjab government to get into the business of passing a bill in the Punjab Assembly for the establishment of a separate province, which is a long due demand of the people of Janoobi Punjab to overcome their problems and deprivations.
When asked after passage of resolution by the National Assembly to express will for a new province, what procedure has to be followed to further materialise the division of Punjab, he said it was now up to the Punjab Assembly to carry a resolution on the same line and then pass a bill with two-thirds majority. He said the bill would discuss nitty-gritty of the administrative functioning of the province.
Naveed sounded upbeat that the Punjab government would not try to block the emergence of Janoobi Punjab since the provincial government also understood the will of the people as well as fact that they would turn hostile to it if any attempt was made to spoil the new province.
When the same proposition was put before PPP Punjab General-Secretary Aziz-ur-Rahman Chan, he explained that the new province would spread from Sahiwal to Sadiqabad with expected capital either in Multan or Bahawalpur. Chan did not have any doubt in mind the next elections will be held in five provinces of the country. However, he admitted that a lot had yet to be done to actually remove grievances of the people of that region.