Govt unnecessarily being criticised for Thar deaths, says Qaim

Karachi

The chief minister said on Tuesday that the provincial government was unnecessarily being criticised over the deaths of children in Tharparkar as sufficient health facilities had been provided in different areas of the district.

Addressing members of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Qaim Ali Shah said at least elected representatives were answerable to the public in democratic set-ups, contrary to the governments of dictators, who neither believed in accountability nor respected the Constitution.

Shah said the Sindh government was providing wheat to the affected families of Tharparkar for the last five years while one bag of wheat was being given to each family on a monthly basis free of charge.

The chief minister said his last government had installed 400 reverse osmosis plants in Tharparkar, adding that one plant was supplying sweet drinking water to 10,000 people.

He announced that 400 more RO plants would be installed there by the end of this year through which drinking water would be supplied to 1 million to 1.2 million people.

On media criticism over the infant deaths in Tharparkar, Shah said over 3,000 people had died in Punjab due to dengue fever in recent years, but nobody had asked the government about them.

However, the Sindh government was unnecessarily being criticised over the issue, he added.

He claimed that best healthcare facilities were being provided at the Mithi district headquarters hospital where air-conditioned rooms and 24 incubators, which were not even available in Karachi, were present in a large number.

Besides, he added, mobile dispensaries were also provided while 49 basic health units were set-up, which were providing health facilities round the clock.

He maintained that Tharparkar had cultural issues, adding that it had not received adequate rains while subsoil water was available at a depth of 135 meters, which too was not fit for human consumption.

He said firms of China, Australia and England would soon establish power plants in the province which would add 6,000 megawatts electricity to the grid.

The government was also providing licences to foreign firms to generate electricity through windmills, which are already adding 300 MW to the national grid.

Shah claimed that his government would overcome the electricity shortage in the province.

He added that the government had also improved the road network to Tharparkar, adding that the portion of road from Thatta to Badin was not less than the standard of the Lahore-Islamabad motorway.

He said politicians also strived for the protection of the fundamental human rights like lawyers did and acted under the Constitution just like the high courts. The chief minister said the courts too worked for the protection of the basic human rights however media blows minor issues out of proportion and the judiciary takes their notice.

Shah said he himself was a senior lawyer and thanked the bar association for awarding him lifetime membership. He said that the country could not run without the Constitution and we are still facing the consequences of dictatorship eras.

He said his party had formed the government in Sindh in 2008 during difficult times when there was neither democracy nor money in the province’s exchequer.

“Sindh was under debt of Rs20 billion, but we did not succumb and served the masses,” he added.

Whenever free and fair elections are held in the country the Pakistan People’s Party wins, he claimed adding that the results of the 2008 and 2013 general elections and the recent local bodies elections were clear evidence of the party’s services to the masses.

Rejecting the opposition’s claims regarding rigging in the local government polls, he said the election commission of Pakistan and the judiciary could take notice if the elections were rigged in the province.

He said despite the country was facing the consequences of the global recession in 2008 his government had given employment to 20,000 youths purely on merit. He recalled that Sindh was lagging behind in education, but the PPP government had promoted education by providing facilities at the schools, which were earlier lying empty because the teachers were not turning up on their duties due to lack of facilities.

He said that the funds are being provided to head master at the school level adding that the budgeting system had been decentralised where retired teachers and lecturers were supervising the fund utilisation. He maintained that budget allocation in health and education has been increased three times in his tenure.

The chief minister said work was done to promote higher education, as the number of the universities in the province had been increased from two to nine in the last four or five years. He added that the establishment of one university cost Rs400 million to Rs500 million.

He added that more than 200 roads had been built in Karachi and rest of the province, while 41 new district headquarters hospitals were also being set up in each taluka.

He also announced a grant of Rs 10 million for the SHCBA, and promised to resolve the issue of imposition of services tax on lawyers. He asked lawyers to have the ban on new lands allotment lifted so that they could be provided 200 acres.

Lawyer’s missing son 

A senior lawyer took up the issue of his missing son with the chief minister. During Shah’s speech, Abdul Sattar came to the stage and informed the chief minister that his son was missing for the last couple of years but government was not making any efforts to find him.

The chief minister assured him that he would issue the necessary instructions to the authorities concerned.