MMA MPA announces movement for separate province

PESHAWAR: A member of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday announced on the assembly floor to launch a movement for a separate province for southern districts of the province as he believed these districts had been neglected in developmental projects by the past governments.

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal MPA from Lakki Marwat Munawwar Khan, while speaking on a cut motion during the budget session, said the chief ministers of the past governments had focused on their respective districts and constituencies while sanctioning the development schemes.

"I have no other option but to announce movement for a separate province for the most underdeveloped southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," said Munawwar Khan, who was recently elected to the provincial assembly for the third consecutive time on the ticket of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F). He said the ANP-led government had approved a degree college for his constituency in Lakki Marwat in 2011, but the college building had not been completed due to non-allocation of funds.

Referring to Ameer Haider Hoti and Pervez Khattak, the JUI-F MPA said the previous governments had allocated huge development funds for Mardan and Nowshera districts to which they belonged while the southern districts were neglected.

The MPA, who is a lawyer, raised the issue of a separate province when the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly offered prayers and fateha for the departed soul of Sardar Haider Zaman, commonly known as Baba Haider Zaman, who passed away on Wednesday.

Haider Zaman had launched and headed the movement for Hazara province ahead of the 18th Amendment when the erstwhile NWFP was renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Lawmakers from Hazara division paid tributes to Haider Zaman and vowed to hold a condolenceconference in Abbottabad soon. However, Awami National Party parliamentary party leader Sardar Hussain Babak reminded that the southern districts of the province had three chief ministers in the past while Malakand division got its first chief minister after the July 25 general election.

Maulana Mufti Mehmood and Sardar Inayatullah Khan Gandapur, both from Dera Ismail Khan, and Akram Khan Durrani from Bannu had served as chief ministers of the province. "All administrative divisions of the province, including Peshawar valley, Hazara division and the southern districts had their chief ministers and now the people of Malakand division got their turn to have a chief minister from their area," Sardar Hussain Babak said. He added that the present chief minister would focus on the development of Malakand division.

In a lighter vein, Chief Minister Mehmood Khan said that it would have been better had the honourable member raised this issue during the MMA rule when Akram Khan Durrani provincial government. "All districts and divisions of the province are important to me and I will not concentrate on my area only but equally distribute development fund among all parts of the province," he said. There would be mega projects for all districts in the next annual budget, he added.