The Inter-Provincial Co-ordination Committee (IPCC) on Monday decided to withdraw Frontier Corps (FC) troops deployed at embassies and in provinces for security to perform duty along the Pak-Afghan border. Federal Minister for Inter-Provincial Co-ordination Salim Saifullah Khan said this at a press conference here after presiding over the IPCC meeting.
He said that a number of important decisions were taken at the meeting for strengthening the provinces, giving them more powers. The other decisions included establishing a separate division of IPCC; repayment of provincial loans to the Centre; handing over of fisheries sector to the respective provinces; and strictly checking the inter-provincial smuggling of arms and narcotics, he said.
"The committee and I am personally making efforts to strength provinces by transferring them more powers. The Federal Government is establishing a central database in Islamabad having its branch in all the provinces to control different inter-provincial criminal activities eg smuggling, car snatching etc," the minister observed.
He said that the meeting decided to withdraw FC troops from other provinces, including those guarding embassies, to deploy them along the Pak-Afghan border to check smuggling of arms and narcotics into Pakistan, from Afghanistan. He said that the committee was concerned about burgeoning arms smuggling and car snatching cases in Punjab.
He said that provinces expressed willingness to pay loans borrowed from the Centre. Punjab has so far repaid Rs 5.2 billion, whereas NWFP had repaid Rs 10 billion loan last year, he said. The minister said that the IPCC had also decided to hand over fisheries sector to the respective provinces and, under the decision, NWFP would be authorised to exploit the fisheries potential in two of its dams-Khanpur and Tarbela.
He said that the committee also decided to establish a separate division, of the IPCC, in the Centre and appointed Sohail Safdar, a Grade 22 officer, as Secretary of the Division. Provincial divisions have already been established in Sindh and Balochistan, whereas Punjab and NWFP have been requested to set up similar divisions, he said. Salim informed the media that the committee had also decided to ask Sindh and Balochistan to amicably decide the issue of water supply to Karachi from Lasbela.
In order to mitigate the prevailing sense of deprivation among smaller provinces, the meeting also recommended to provide equal employment opportunities to the provinces in PIA, State Bank, NHA and other Federal government departments, he said. The minister said that the provinces had proposed to collect 2.5 percent general sales tax, which would be discussed in the next meeting.
He said that the IPCC had engaged a retired Judge of Supreme Court to prepare a draft for the 18th Amendment Bill for transferring administrative and financial powers to the provinces. The draft has been completed, and it would soon be presented to the PML-Q president Shujaat Hussain for further discussion. The fourth meeting of the committee would be held in Balochistan in the last week of May to take up other provincial issues.