PA approves demands for Rs12.7t in grant

LAHORE
Punjab Assembly Tuesday approved the demands for grant worth Rs 12.7456 trillion for the fiscal year 2015-16 amidst uproar by the opposition and boycott for not allowing to debate on what they called misspending in vital sectors like Health and Police.
The House rejected all the six cut motions proposed by the opposition to approve 43 demands for grant, paving the way for the passage of the finance bill. Three of the cut motions were voted out by the House while other three were rejected after the speaker applied the guillotine principle to meet the time shortage under special rules.
Punjab Chief minister Shahbaz Sharif attended the proceedings for about ten minutes before the House rose for the day but did not make any speech despite the expectations. The chief minister also avoided to talk to the media present outside the House and went away after the session drew to close. Upon reaching the House, he was given a warm welcome by the treasury members with loud slogans.
The largest demand for grant was of Rs 220.715 trillion under the head of Development, while the second largest amount was of Rs 123.287 trillion which was approved to be spent under the head of grains and official trade of sugar, while pension gets the third biggest amount, 104 trillion rupees.
Apart from those grants, the Police department got the largest amount, 87.085 billion rupees, which also drew furious criticism from the opposition members and they later walked out of the House to protest that the speaker did not allow them to speak on the issue. Education sector got Rs 56.33 billion rupees while health sector received Rs 12.59 billion. The House will discuss the passage of Finance Bill 2015-16 on Wednesday (today) after resumption of proceedings.