Restructuring of PR legal,IT dept approved

LAHORE

Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique has approved re-structuring and strengthening of legal and IT department after property and land in three consecutive meetings at Pakistan Railways Headquarters office here.

Property and Land Director Arshad Salam Khattak presented detailed programme of the land department on divisional level. The land department would be established along the lines of revenue department.

According to a press release issued here Monday, the minister said land management system requires technologies with capacity and staff to manage real estate efficiently.

Officers would use geographic information system to manage accurate inventory of our land bank. He constituted a working committee under CEO Railways that would come up with proposals for posts lying vacant in different departments. He said that new vacancies should be filled up with technical staff and employees would only be given extension if their performance is found satisfactory.

In another meeting, the minister was briefed on passenger coaches’ upgradation project. He directed the officials not to compromise on quality of material used in upgradation. He was briefed in detail about 100 coaches and material used in their upgradation. 

Tax scheme: Punjab Revenue Authority Chairman Dr Raheel Ahmed Siddique has said those beauty salons who register themselves with BIMS voluntarily shall be taxed at low rate of 5pc instead of 16pc. 

He expressed these views while presiding over a meeting with the representatives of Pakistan Beauty Parlor Association. He discussed with them the method of using Beauty Parlor Invoice Monitoring System and its placement procedure at salons. He told the meeting that the tax will automatically paid as the real receipt would cut without any discrepancy. He said that those who will register themselves without any legal proceedings will enjoy special reduction of 11pc discount in sales services tax rate and the others have to pay existing tax rate of 16pc on services. He said there is no exemption to any one all service providers will be inducted gradually in tax net. The chairman said the authority always tries to give relief their stakeholders and they should also fulfill their responsibilities towards the contrary. To encourage the more people participate in this process, Punjab Revenue Authority will introduce reward scheme for BIMS users like RIMS. 

conference: Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Chairman Prof Dr Muhammad Nizamuddin has said the medical profession is facing many ethical challenges in its practice. 

“There is increasing dissatisfaction on the part of the patients who are expecting more and more from the doctors”, he said while addressing as the chief guest at the inaugural session of an international conference on medical ethics at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Monday.

The theme of the two-day conference is: “Ethics in challenging times”, and it is being organised in collaboration with the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC), SIUT, Karachi.

Prof Nizamuddin said medical fraternity is becoming more and more dependent on technology thus becoming more impersonal.

“The fundamental values of medicine insist that doctor’s obligation is to keep the patient’s interest above everything else”, he opined.

He said ethics is the basic requirement in every profession but medicine should take a lead in it.  UHS Vice Chancellor, Prof Dr Junaid Sarfraz Khan, said important issues of autonomy, confidentiality, justice, beneficence, and nonmaleficence are key factors that should guide the daily decision making by doctors. 

tribute: Punjab University Monday organised a ceremony to pay tribute to critic, poet, writer and professor of Punjabi at PU Department of Punjabi late Dr Naheed Shahid died of cancer last month. 

PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Zafar Mueen Nasir, Registrar Dr Muhammad Khalid Khan, Dean Faculty of Oriental Learning Prof Dr Fakhrul Haq Noori, Academic Staff Association (ASA) President Javed Sami, Secretary Iftikhar Tarar, a large number of teachers from various departments and students were present.