KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet in order to get rid of a major social evil has imposed a ban on child beggary and directed the provincial Social Welfare Department to pick the children from traffic signals and streets and rehabilitate them at their welfare centers.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presided over the cabinet meeting here at the New Sindh Secretariat on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by all the provincial ministers. The advisers to the chief minister and special assistants were invited to the meeting especially. Chief Secretary Sindh Mumtaz Shah conducted the meeting.
At the start of the cabinet meeting, the CM and members of the cabinet expressed profound grief on the death of two innocent children reportedly due to consumption of poisonous food. The chief minister directed the chief secretary to strengthen the food authority and start inspection of all the food outlets. “I know our food authority is nascent but with special focus we can make it an effective organization,” he said.
Later, the CM’s Adviser on Law and Information Murtaza Wahab presented findings of his committee the cabinet had earlier constituted on the issue of beggary on September 3, 2018. The other members of the committee were Minister Health Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho and Minister for Social Welfare Hari Ram.
The report said that enough laws were available to deal with the issue. For instance, the Section 7 of the West Pakistan Vagrancy Ordinance 158 prohibits beggary. The report says the so-called beggars are also seen to be roaming around with children who are either used directly or indirectly for beggary or are seen to be with some women or men who present themselves as child’s custodian. It is a violation of Section 49 of the Sindh Child Act 1955. The report also pointed out that in 2011, the Sindh Assembly had passed the Sindh Child Protection Authority Act-2011, which called for ensuring the rights of children in need of special measures and to provide matters ancillary thereto.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in consultation with the cabinet decided to ban beggary all over Sindh and in the first phase, children being used as beggars have been banned completely. He directed the Social Welfare department to launch a special drive against child beggary.
Shah directed the districts’ administration and police in the province to help the Social Welfare department in the drive to be launched against child beggary and round up the child beggars and send them to Sweet Homes (for shelterless children) and Street Children Centre, Korangi, where they would be rehabilitated. “I want to provide them with shelter, food, sports activities and education so that they could be made useful citizens of the country,” he said.
He also directed the Social Welfare Department to make the Child Protection Authority as an effective organization. “Helpline 1121 must be projected in the media so that common man could complain wherever the rights of a child are seen to be compromised,” he said and added in the next phase another effective and vigorious drive would be launched against beggary. “I don’t want to see any child stretching his hand for beggary at the signals and in the streets,” he said.
It was pointed out that Street Children Center, Korangi, was at the completion stage. The chief minister directed Minister Works & Services Nasir Shah to get it completed on warfootings. Till that time, the rounded-up beggar children would be sent to the Sweet Homes.
The Sindh cabinet has decided to dispose of its wheat stocks of 1,745,815 tonnes at a release price of Rs3,315 per 100 kg jute bag and Rs3,250 PP bag as it would exert a Rs6.7 billion financial burden of subsidy on the provincial exchequer.
The chief minister had constituted a committee under Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah and provincial secretary finance and secretary food as its members to recommend the issue price. The committee presented it report. The report says that the stock position of wheat was 1,745,815 tonnes.
The cabinet also discussed tariff differential subsidy to Sindh New Captive Power Plants (SNCPP) threadbare. The cabinet was told that the government has received the claims of six SNCPP amounting to Rs2.3 billion.
The chief minister said that these six SNCPPs were located in rural areas such Dadu, Shikarpur, Thatta, etc, and generating 103.7 MW power and feeding into the local grid. “How much impact they have created in the loadshedding situation in small districts like Shikarpur?” asked the CM. At this, the energy minister Imtiaz Shaikah said that there was no such apparatus to assess their impact.
The power they were generating was being fed into the national grid, therefore, assessment of its impact was quite difficult. The CM directed the minister to make arrangements to assess the impact on local loadshedding and report to him.
CM’s Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Water Ashfaq Memon told the cabinet that 38 per cent shortage of irrigation water for current Rabi has been declared by IRSA. There were apprehensions of increase in the shortage.