Punjab Assembly (PA) debated the supplementary budget and legislators showed their dissent on the higher electricity bills in Saturday's session. They also showed their rejection of the water situation faced by the province and said that this situation needed to be rectified at once.
Finance Minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira winding the debate on supplementary budget for the year 2008-09 said that Rs 115 billion were used on the purchase of wheat. He said Rs two billion were kept for giving Rs 200,000 per tractor subsidy on Green Tractor Scheme. On supply of medicines to emergency units in hospital Rs two billion were kept and another two billion were kept for supply of generators and air conditioners to the hospitals.
On the water issue, he said that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had already said that distribution of water would be made according to 1991 Water Accord. He said besides this Rs two billion were allocated for Sasti Roti Scheme and finances were kept for the Educational Endowment Fund. He undertook that they would try to keep minimum supplementary tax in next financial year supplementary budget estimates.
On the water issue, Finance Minister Kaira said Senior Minister Raja Riaz was in Islamabad and he would submit his report in the House on Monday. Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Zaheer-u-Din and MPA Mohsin Laghari demanded reconstitution of the IRSA Committee saying that it was unfortunate that in the recent meeting of IRSA, Punjab had no representation. They averred that there was constant depletion in the water level within last few days.
MPA Hassan Murtaza in the session said that history was replete with examples of those who did something for their nation. He blasted that the nation, which had contributed much for the restoration of democracy, was being razed down with the bomb of inflation and ever increasing costs of utility goods.
Chaudhry Abdul Waheed stated that it was for the first time that kissan had been economically prosperous and could solve his problems. He demanded that more should be spend on urea and fertiliser to make agriculture more viable. MPA Pervaiz Rafiq of minorities said it was unfortunate that not even one-percent was kept for minorities in Annual Development Fund and said that their projects should be given due priority.
Chaudhry Zaheer-u-Din said that from Taunsa Barrage 1,293,000 acres were being irrigated. He posed question that due to shortage of water from it, what would happen to this land. MPA Sajida Mir asked for constituencies where only women could contest each other and demanded forming of women courts.
MPA Chaudhry Sher Ali averred that four things were necessary for agriculture water, land, fertiliser and seed. Everybody knew the situation of water he said that everybody knew that Urea was in dearth and black-marketed, fertiliser was in shortage, and so only land was left leaving agriculture in dire straits, he added.
An MPA forwarded a proposal that prior to presentation of budget, this should be put before Finance Committees. He said by doing this, problems of north and south of Punjab could be effectively dealt with, he added. The House was later adjourned for Monday 3:00pm by Speaker, Rana Muhammad Iqbal.
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