The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday concluded budget debate with the strong criticism by opposition of the province next financial plan 2015-16 as the MQM announced to protest the 'injustices' against and urban and rural areas. MQM Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan asked the government to allocate 50 percent development funds in the budget for Karachi alone as the country's largest city shared half of the population in Sindh.
He said that Sindh's budget was greater than fiscal allocations of over 50 countries of the world but 'no' change was visible in the province. "We do not subscribe the provincial government's justification that the federal government was not transferring funds to it. The situation was alike when the PPP ruled in centre for five years," he told the house, proposing that the agriculture income tax, if imposed, would help accumulate more Rs 10 billion to the provincial exchequer. He also opposed the indirect taxation, which he said is 90 percent.
Chief Minister Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah quipped in reply to Khawaja Izhar's speech that 'we are not that bad to be praised at least for one good deed." In concluding remarks, he said that the federal government could not be spared from responsibilities over the killings of hundreds of people from heat-stroke in the province. He said that the Thar coal project should have been executed to provide electricity without interruption. He said that the Thar coal power projects were not focused that resulted in electricity scarcity and its outages, causing people to die in heat-trigger weather.
Last fiscal year, he said, the federal government, despite the province had protested, announced Rs 22 billion mega projects for the province instead of Rs 525 billion ones. This fiscal year, the center has earmarked projects of Rs 9.5 billion against Rs 585 billion, he told the house, saying that "we protested against it and contended that at least the projects should be earmarked on the basis of NFC formula of 24.6 percent."
He also slammed Federal Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif for his remarks declaring Thar coal as 'worthless' project, saying that the federal minister's views was tantamount to sabotaging the 'big' project. "On our persuasion, the prime minister had also agreed to consider the Thar coal project in the CCI meeting," he said. He also blamed the federal government for not releasing the 'total' taxation share to the province "to carry out more development works in the province". Sindh is rich of oil and gas, he said, adding that the federal government was not providing the province with its due share. He said that the government collected taxes from the entire province and spent it across Sindh.
Latter, the chief minister and ruling PPP legislators staged a protest sit-in outside the assembly building against the electricity load shedding, which they blamed caused the over 700 deaths in the province particularly in Karachi. The chief minister told reporters that the power supply was the responsibility of federal water and power ministry but accused the ministry of shying away from its key job. "People in Sindh are dying from water and power scarcity," he said. The lawmakers also shouted chants against Khawaja Asif and demanded him to resign.
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