LAHORE : Ruling PTI members in Punjab Assembly on Tuesday opposed a public interest resolution tabled by their own colleague, without understanding the actual demand in it, forcing the resolution to be voted out.
The resolution by PTI’s Uzma Kardar tabled on private members day, called upon the government for allocating a separate lane or track, on the pattern of Metro Bus track, on the major roads of five large cities of the province to facilitate the ambulance to transport the wounded to the hospitals quickly. The mover had pointed out that traffic in large cities of the province had increased to unmanageable proportions. The situation was alarming particularly in the five large cities Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala where ambulances frequently trapped in the traffic jams, casing loss of precious lives.
Interestingly, majority of the PTI members did not either read or understand what was demanded in the resolution, and wrongly took it that the mover had demanded the Metro Bus track to be allocated for ambulances. Consequently, they kept opposing the resolution by defending that the Metro Bus track could not be allowed for ambulances. However, Law Minister Raja Basharat who belonged to PML-Q, understood it correctly and said constructing separate tracks for ambulances would require several billions of rupees which the government could not provide at present. PTI’s Mian Aslam Iqbal said how ambulances could be plied on Metro Bus tracks since the metro track had no entry and exit points. He said if allowed on metro track, ambulances would have to take the wounded to Gujjumatta only where they could exit from the track. PML-N’s Samiullah Khan pointed out that there were several entry-exit points on metro bus track which could be use for ambulances easily. He demanded that the resolution be amended and tabled again later. But the minister asked the chair to hold the voting on the resolution, which led it to be voted out by the majority of the House.
Out of the total ten resolutions on the private members day, of which five were pending from previous occasions and five were fresh, only one was presented before the House for voting while eight of them were again pended for next private members day because the relevant ministers were not present in the House.
The mover of remaining ninth resolution, Neelam Hayat Malik, was forced to withdraw her resolution which called for complete ban on sale of loose petrol in the province and give harsh punishments to violators. However, PPP’s parliamentary leader Hasan Murtaza opposed the resolution.
