MQM demands subsidies on three food items in Sindh’s urban centres

Karachi
As opposition lawmakers of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) complained of discriminatory attitude of the Sindh government towards development of urban areas, one of their MPAs demanded subsidies on the provision of at least three essential edible items for the residents of urban centres of the province.
The discussion over the province’s fiscal performance also continued on Tuesday in the Sindh Assembly when the expenses incurred in the third quarter of the ongoing financial year, from January to March 2015, was reviewed as the lawmakers concerned gave suggestions for the upcoming annual budget.
Speaker Agha Siraj Durrnai, who chaired the proceedings, regretted thin attendance of MPAs reflecting their lack of interest in the pre-budget discussion.
Leading the debate, Muhammad Hussain Khan of the MQM demanded subsidy on retail prices of oil, sugar and wheat flour for the residents of major cities in the province.
He said the ruling Pakistan People’s Party government had already undertaken a number of initiatives for providing incentives to population of the rural areas, in terms of subsidies on seeds, fertiliser and operation of tube wells, besides provision of loans to farmers.
He said food subsidies should be provided to the residents of urban Sindh because the government had ignored their development. Khan claimed that the Sindh chief minister, while presenting last year’s budget, had announced Rs42 billion for the development of Karachi besides the allocation of another Rs25 billion for schemes for the megacity under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).
However, he said, it was revealed upon scrutiny that out of the Rs25 billion ADP schemes, Rs10 billion were reserved for the construction of the new Sindh Assembly building and MPAs’ hostel.
According to him, in the last budget, the Sindh government had reserved Rs588 million for seven road schemes in Karachi. However, he pointed out, nine months of the current financial year had passed but only 25 percent of the budget had been released.
Khan said the water crisis in Karachi had worsened to a great extent and to cope with the situation, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board had proposed 76 schemes for the last year’s budget. He said 17 of those schemes were termed as top priority, but all the schemes had remained unapproved till present.
Moreover, he said, only Rs210 million out of the Rs1 billion were released under the head of Karachi Development Package while Rs447 million were released out of the Rs458 million announced for Lyari Development Package.
Moving on to education development in Karachi, Khan said 42 percent of allocated funds have been released and out of those only 49.2 percent have so far been spent.
The opposition lawmaker alleged that recently the Sindh finance department had released funds for four proposed development schemes for Karachi, since the financial year now was coming to a close and the funds released were being redirected for spending on development projects in the interior of the province.
Khan warned that in the next session, he would come armed with documentary proof to support his claim of rerouting of development funds meant primarily for Karachi. He said it was “pitiable” that Karachi’s contribution to the GDP was around 70 percent but expenditure on its development was not more than between Rs2 and Rs3 billion.
He said the MQM MPAs in the last budget had proposed 183 development schemes for urban areas of Sindh but only nine of them were included in the ADP.
He gave the example of Punjab government, and said it owned the city of Lahore completely despite opposition in certain pockets. He praised the Punjab government on its massive spending on development and progress of Lahore city, and said by doing so it had advanced 25 years as compared to Karachi.
Heer Ismail Soho, also from the MQM, said it seemed that there was no coordination between the provincial government and its departments of finance and planning.
She said that Sindh had received Rs71 billion less than what it had expected from the federal government while the delay in announcement of a new National Finance Commission had caused great setback to Sindh.
She said for all such justified financial causes of Sindh, merely a protest on paper by the provincial finance minister was not sufficient.
Dr Zafar Kamali, MQM MPA from Mirpurkhas city, said the development package worth Rs1 billion announced for his area had not seen any further progress while educational and health facilities were in shambles and needed urgent repair.
Irum Azeem Farooque pointed out that adequate allocation of funds for the development of Karachi would not be possible until the exact population of the city was not determined by holding a fresh census.
She said given the worsening water crisis in Karachi, the K-IV scheme should have been completed by now and the government should work to rectify its negligence on this front.
A PPP lawmaker, Ghulam Mujtaba Isran, said the roads in his hometown Kambar-Shahdadkot had been in good condition but the same could not be said for the status of development for the rest of the constituency.
Another PPP MPA, Rehana Laghari, said in her hometown of Sujawal, which was a newly-created district, did not even have a proper infrastructure of government offices.