Punjab Assembly passes 2011-12 budget

Punjab Assembly in its 27th budgetary session here on Wednesday approved 43 Demands for Grants worth Rs 653 billion and with that it passed the 2011-12 budget. Three cut motions of opposition were rejected. The Budget was passed with majority vote when PPP members vacated the House during voting. The PPP MPAs spokesman said they did not oppose the budget on the instructions of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif congratulated members and said that opposition members' positive proposals for betterment of the economy would be welcome. He asked the parliamentarians to hold discussion in the house on foreign aid issue, hoping that they would reject such aid. He said that foreign aid had affected the concept of independence of the nation and they would not accept it at any cost. Giving details of allocations for higher English medium schools and other institutions he said no money has ever been spent for better education of poor, adding that criticism on Danish Schools was uncalled for and unjustified. He said they were aware of missing facilities in 60,000 Punjab schools and were doing their best to improve them.
Former opposition leader Zaheer u Din expressed hope that money in the budget would be prudently used .He asked not to waste money in future on schemes like Sasti Roti, Food Stamp Scheme and Raiwind Scheme. MPA Ghulam Shabbir, criticising institutions, particularly armed forces quoted proverbial of Sultan Salahudin Ayubi who said: 'if you want to weaken some country weaken its army'.
Food Minister Abdul Ghafoor said that due to wise policies of the present CM Shahbaz Sharif the country instead of importing wheat has become exporter of the commodity. He said there was no shortage of sugar in the province. He said 9,00,000 tons of wheat had been exported in the last three months.
He said that 51,00,000 tons wheat was available in the Punjab godowns, of which 23,00,000 tonne was in stores. He said 18,000,00 acres area was affected in floods while Rs 96 billion loss occurred to farmers in the flood. Agriculture Minister Ahmed Ali Aulak said that there has been a record production of wheat and rice this year. Journalists of the Punjab Assembly Press Gallery boycotted the session. They were criticising Qabza Group threats in the Lahore Press Club Journalists Colony. They later came back on the assurance of a stern action by the government against the Qabza Group. The House was adjourned for Thursday.