General discussion on annual budget for the year 2013-14 continued in the Punjab Assembly on Saturday and the treasury members hardly made any constructive arguments by just praising the government for giving a 'balance budget.' On the contrary, the Opposition members opposed the budget just for the sake of opposition. To show a strong opposition role, on three occasions they unsuccessfully tried to disrupt the general discussion on budget by pointing out quorum.
Deputy Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani strongly objected to the opposition's improper move and said that nowhere in the democratic countries the parliaments were stopped from an important task of debating on budget. He pointed out that a legislator's input on budget was for the consumption of the finance ministry and not MPAs; hence, required quorum in the House became irrelevant during the general discussion on budget.
However, Samina Khawar Hayat of PML-Q, who twice pointed out the quorum, kept insisting that it was the government's job to maintain the quorum, as required by the rules of the Assembly. The Opposition benchers also questioned the seriousness of the treasury benchers on important subject of budget. Opposition Leader Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed, on a point of order, told the Deputy Speaker that both Leader of the House Shahbaz Sharif and Punjab Finance Minister Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rahman were missing from the House and thus wondered to whom legislators were giving suggestions to.
He had pointed out the 'missing persons' after the session had started for 45 minutes and the Finance Minister came to the House after half an hour of point of order. Hence, for over one hour, it was not noted that no one from the treasury benches were taking notes of suggestions and criticism made by the MPAs.
During a long session, the treasury benchers praised the Punjab government for giving a balance budget. However, a few of them showed concern over the impact of energy crisis on agriculture. Asharf Warrich said long power outage and inflated electricity bills is forcing small farmers to shutdown their tube-wells; they cannot meet the escalating costs of maintaining tube-wells. "Hence, this will have a negative impact on the agriculture productivity. The provincial government should either subsidise the electricity bills or provide solar tube-wells to small farmers," he added.
Dr Murad Raas of Pakistan Tahrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) came hard on the government for giving a budget that did not provide any relief to the people. He observed that allocations made for laptop and Danish School projects could have been better utilised for educating poor children. He was of the view that Rs 20 billion for electricity production was insufficient. He also did not approve of increasing the budget of police department, as in his opinion the department needed reforms and accountability and not money. Ahmad Shah Khagga of PML-Q's opposed the Agriculture Income Tax, which in his opinion will put more financial burden on hard pressed small farmers. Later, the Deputy Speaker adjourned the House till Monday morning.
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