LAHORE – In a bid to secure the political future of the Khosa tribe in Dera Ghazi Khan and grip over the PML-N organisation in South Punjab, Sardar Dost Muhammad Khan Khosa, has demanded of his government to establish a ‘Sub-Secretariat’ of the provincial government at Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan or Bahawalpur to solve the problems of the people of Southern Punjab at their doorsteps.
Sardar Dost Muhammad Khosa taking part in the general discussion on budget debate during the 38th session of the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday took an aggressive posture against his government for not understanding the agonies of the people of South Punjab.
The younger boy of the Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa family and former Chief Minister Punjab, Dost Khosa to establish his strong line over the problems of the South Punjab sits in the upper gallery of the House alongwith some MPAs from South Punjab including his brother, Hassam-ud-Din Khosa instead of sitting with other members of the Treasury, while, many of their colleagues have noticed this development with unease.
Dost Khosa demanding a Sub-Secretariat in South Punjab proposed that an Additional Chief Secretary, Additional Inspector General of Police, Additional Secretaries and Special Secretaries should be deputed in the Sub Secretariat in order to solve the problems of the people of Southern Punjab at their doorsteps.
He said that the PML-N government should go beyond than passing resolutions on South Punjab and Bahawalpur, as the needs of the people of these remote areas could not be met with resolutions only.
He asked what would be the feeling of a person who travels for 16 hours from a remote area of South Punjab when he fails to meet a senior civil servant to resolve his issue.
The junior Khosa said as the Chief Secretary, Additional Secretaries and Special Secretaries function from Lahore, which compels people of Southern Punjab to travel for long hours to the provincial capital and leave without getting their issue resolved at several occasions.
Azma Zahid Bukhari taking the floor said that the provincial government had allocated Rs nine billion for the energy sector in the last fiscal but it didn’t spend a single penny on the sector, besides not taking up a single project of dam despite announcing in 2009 that it would build 200 dams.
She said that the provincial government announced last year that it would establish 67 model villages, however it hasn’t fixed a single penny in the new budget for this purpose.
Azma challenging another budget allocation said that the government has announced a scheme of 10,000 tractors and now this number was set at 20,000 tractors, however, the subsidy for this scheme was Rs two billion, which was same in the last year.
She said that free medicines budget at the public hospitals was decreased from Rs 5.5 billion to 5 billion, while the development funds were cut to two per cent from 34 to 32 per cent.
Azma said that Rs two crore have been fixed for the Chief Minister protocol, however, the real expense on this head was Rs five crore.
She asked the rulers of the province to inform the House why they spent Rs 36 crore on Chief Minister Secretariat instead of the fixed amount of Rs 26 crore.
The PPP legislator said that only Rs14 billion of the subsidy on the head of public relief were utilised out of Rs 30 billion fixed for this purpose.
In the Provincial Assembly session, 25 members took part in the debate from Opposition and Treasury benches of which Sardar Dost Muhammad Khosa (PML-N), Azma Zahid (PPP), Chaudhry Zaheer-ud-Din (PML-Q) and Major (Retd) Zulfikar Gondal (PPP) influenced the House through their issue oriented debates.