Reform panel's suggestion: provinces be empowered to set up bourses

Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms on Friday proposed that the provincial governments should be allowed to set up and regulate stock exchanges within their jurisdictions, reliable sources told Business Recorder. Members of the committee made this proposal while discussing Article-30 of the Federal Legislative List part-I.
The members thoroughly discussed various Articles of the List in the meeting.
THE TEXT OF ARTICLE-30 OF FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE LIST PART-I IS AS FOLLOWS: "30. Stock exchanges and futures markets with objects and business not confined to one Province." Presently, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is the only regulator to monitor the stock exchanges on behalf of the federal government. Now, the committee has proposed that the provinces should be empowered to give permission for opening new stock exchanges and supervise and monitor their activities at the provincial level. The committee also proposed giving authority to the provinces to construct dams for hydel power projects after discussing Article-157 of the Constitution.
THE TEXT OF ARTICLE-157 READS:
157. ELECTRICITY "(1) The Federal Government may in any Province construct or cause to be constructed hydro-electric or thermal power installations or grid stations for the generation of electricity and lay or cause to be laid inter-provincial transmission lines."
The sources said the members discussed various articles including 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and others of Federal Legislative List about ports, shipping, telegraph, taxes and highway for deciding to give them or not into the control of provinces. But the committee did not take final decision so far in this regard, sources said.
The sources said some members also proposed to give control of revenue generation from toll plazas and motels of the roads of the National Highway Authority and GST on goods and food items to the provinces, the sources said. The sources said the law ministry experts were also present in the daily basis meetings of the committee to formulate the draft of recommendations to complete its work as early as possible. The committee is likely to complete its works within a week and submit its report to both houses of the Parliament.