PA session adjourned due to lack of quorum

The Sindh Assembly session on Tuesday was adjourned without any formal proceedings due to lack of quorum, which drew the ire of Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani.

The session was scheduled to begin at 10am. The speaker came to the House at around 11am and expressed his resentment that merely 10 lawmakers were in attendance out of the 168 MPAs. He immediately ordered the session adjourned till 2pm on Thursday. The session was adjourned with a recitation from the Holy Quran and a Naat.

Tuesday was private members’ day of the provincial assembly as the agenda for the day contained a number of call to attention notices, private resolutions and motions of legislators on issues of governance and public importance.

Speaking to journalists after the adjournment, Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani said the honourable speaker should have given a warning instead of adjourning the session all of a sudden. The provincial minister said that he was sitting in his chamber in the assembly building as a number of items related to his department were part of agenda for the day.

Responding to a question regarding Karachi Circular Railway (KCR), Ghani said the removal of encroachments alone from the proposed track of KCR could not ensure the early revival of the project as finances were also a major issue.

He said the provincial authorities concerned earlier too had launched the drive to remove encroachments from the proposed KCR track but the operation had been suspended as the Railway authorities had said that they didn’t have the capacity to properly safeguard the land vacated as a result of the government’s drive.