Government won't ban private taxi service: minister

Terming the sale of liquor and its unrestricted consumption `a social issue', Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Wednesday demanded of the Sindh government to shift the wine shops from Muslim-majority neighbourhoods of city to the areas inhabited by non-Muslim.
Voicing concern over the sale of liquor and its open consumption within the Muslim neighbourhoods, MQM lawmaker Nadeem Razi told Sindh Assembly session that wine shops are located in Muslim majority areas close to the mosques and schools. "In many areas people are seen openly drinking wine, while in some areas home delivery service is also provided," he added.
However, Senior Parliamentary Affairs Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro objected to the MQM legislator's demand and refused to dislocate the wine shops from Muslim-majority areas to the non-Muslims ones. "If there is a wine shop, it means the government had approved it according to rules and regulations," the minister said, advising the legislator not to segregate the Muslim areas from non-Muslim ones.
In response to a call-attention notice by MQM lawmaker Jamal Ahmed, Sindh Transport Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah assured the house that his party's government would not ban the private taxi service (including Uber and Careem). However, he said, that the taxi service would have to comply with the rules and pay 10 per cent tax to the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department for plying their vehicles on roads.
He, however, warned that action would be taken against non-commercial vehicles under the Sindh Motor Vehicles Act of 1965 if they were operated on commercial basis. "The commercial use of non-commercial vehicles is illegal," he told the house, saying that "we don't to shut them [private taxi services - Uber and Careem] for the public comfort. If they comply with the rules, we have no objections", he added.
Just before the end of the session, MQM legislator Dr Zafar Kamali accused the PPP government of sacking 52 Urdu-speaking officials of Mirpurkhas education board. He said that the sacked officials were the victims of ethnicity as being 'Mohajirs'. He alleged that Sindh's PPP government was rendering people jobless. Nisar Khuhro asked the MQM lawmaker to avoid creating hatred by saying the Sindh and Urdu-speaking communities were separate or the latter was politically-victimised on ethnicity basis. He said that all those living in Sindh were Sindhi as the government had no policy to discriminate among the ethnic groups. Later, Deputy Speaker Syeda Shehla Raza adjourned the proceedings of the house till Thursday 10am.