The federal government has authorised the Sindh government to collect fee for the installation of cell phone towers from the companies, official sources at inter-provincial co-ordination department told Business Recorder on Friday. They said that this was decided at a meeting of inter-provincial co-ordination committee, held recently, with Federal Minister Senator Raza Rabbani in the chair.
Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf, Chairman Wapda Shakil Durrani, all the four inter-provincial co-ordination ministers, secretaries and chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) attended the meeting. From now on, the officials said, the cell phone companies will pay Rs 30,000 as a processing fee to the provincial government for installing towers in the province.
In another development the center has rejected the provincial government's demand for increase in job quota of Sindh in the federal government in return for the irrigation water being taken away from Indus River", they added. They said that the meeting also decided to transfer fishing rights of Hub Dam to Sindh and Balochistan from July 2009, after the expiry of the current contract.
To resolve the issue, a committee, comprising chief secretaries and secretaries of inter-provincial co-ordination department, has been constituted to resolve the issue of supplying 5 million gallons of water to Hub, district Lasbella, Balochistan, they said. "Sindh government has opposed the supply of 1120 cusecs of drinking water to Islamabad, Rawalpindi and for irrigation purpose to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)," they said.
They said that Punjab should give water to Islamabad and Rawalpindi, as they are its cities. According to officials, the CDA offered to increase job at federal level in return for supply of 200 cusecs of water to Islamabad from the Indus River. But the provincial minister rejected the proposal by saying that the Sindh province was being deprived of its already existing job quota and the officials are not being given promotion.