KP Assembly unanimously passes budget

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly unanimously passed the budget for fiscal year 2018-19 by approving all the 58 demands for grants of Rs648 billion as the opposition members withdrew their cut motions on Wednesday.

The assembly also approved the finance bill unanimously. KP Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani with the consensus of opposition applied Rule 148 as only 12 demands for grants had been approved after debate on cut motions during the last three days.

The opposition withdrew their cut motions after the meeting of the parliamentary leaders with Chief Minister Mehmood Khan and getting assurance about redressal of their concerns leading to unanimous passage of the budget and finance bill.

The chief minister, while speaking on the floor, asked the administrative secretaries of different departments to be present in the House when he is attending the session. He said the secretaries should ensure their presence in the assembly when he (CM) was attending the session and on other days officers not less than additional secretary should be present in the assembly.

Earlier, Speaker Mushtaq Ghani had ruled officer not less than additional secretary should be present in the assembly. Speaking on the cut motions on demand for grants for Higher Education, the members raised questions over the performance of education department.

Most of the opposition members criticised police baton-charge of the students of University of Peshawar some days back and said their protest against raise in fee was genuine. They said poor students were being deprived of education through increase in fee. The universities administration should reduce their expenditures instead of burdening students, they added.

Opposition leader Akram Khan Durrani said hike in fee, lack of accommodation facility for students and teaching staff shortage were major problems in the education sector. He asked the chief minister to call the vice-chancellors of all public sector universities to know about their problems and also check their performance through intelligence agencies and then ensure equal allocation of funds for different varsities.

He said there should be decrease in fees instead of further increase. He also suggested checking performance of reputed educational institutions by checking their results. Inayatullah Khan of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) called for a parliamentary committee to ascertain the reasons of faults in entry test to medical colleges.

He said the Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA) negative marking badly affected the students in the province. He said in Punjab 50 percent of the candidates achieved 60 percent marks in ETEA test while in KP only five percent scored 60 percent. Has the government any plan regarding Higher Education Commission (HEC) on provincial level and a universities moratorium keeping in view mushroom growth of private universities in the province, he pose a question.

The Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said his party-led government established 19 universities and campuses from Chitral to Dera Ismail Khan but the previous PTI set up established just two universities during its five years rule.

The ANP's Shagufta Malik, Khushdil Khan, Bahadur Khan, Mehmood Ahmad Khan and Munawwar Khan and Mian Nisar Gul of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and Sardar Yousaf and Sobia Shahid of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) complained of shortage of teaching staff, funds and other facilities in educational institutions in own respective areas.

Khushdil Khan and Shagufta Malik called for reduction in fee and reducing administrative expenditure of varsities to divert funds for research as well as provision of hostels. Sardar Yousaf said more than three hundreds schools destroyed during the 2005 earthquake are yet to be rebuilt. He said areas in his constituency like Shinkiari, Baffa had no colleges for boys and girls.