RTI bill draft being reviewed thoroughly, NA told

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has formed a five-member committee to chalk out recommendations on the draft of Right to Information (RTI) Bill  2016. He said that this committee was established on January 11, 2016.

He said this while replying to a question of Shakila Lucman during the Question-Hour in the National Assembly on Wednesday. The session was presided over by Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.

The House was told that Minister for Information Pervaiz Rashid, Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of State for IT Anousha Rehman, Adviser to PM on National History and Literary Heritage Irfan Siddiqui and Parliamentary Secretary Interior Maryam Aurangzeb are the members of that committee.

He said that the committee discussed every aspect of the draft after legal scrutiny.

He said that for consolidating it more on legal point of view the draft was handed over to the committee comprising Law Minister Zahid Hamid, Special Assistant to Minister Barrister Zafarullah and Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf. 

He said that the draft was officially dispatched to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on August 12, 2016, after carrying out legal scrutiny. The Ministry of Information would send this draft to the Cabinet Division. 

Answering another question, the minister said under Satellite TV Licence conditions STV channels are allowed to present 10 pc foreign content at the maximum. Forty per cent of the 10 pc would be in English. The minister said in 2006 a meeting was presided over by the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. On Musharraf's order, Pemra and Ministry of Information were instructed in this meeting to decide about showing some per cent Indian content by Pakistani channels. Pemra allowed private TV channels on February 25, 2006 to show six per cent Indian content of the total content.