A majority of lawmakers on Tuesday voted out the MQM's move to table an amendment bill seeking changes in Karachi Water and Sewerage Board Act during the Sindh Assembly session. The failure of tabling 'Karachi Water Sewerage Board (Amendment) bill' in the house by MQM led to its lawmakers' protest walkout shouting 'give powers to Karachi'.
The MQM's bill was aimed at amending the existing law that enables the Sindh Local Bodies Minister to appoint Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) chairman. The MQM's bill seeks handing over of the KWSB to the elected mayor of Karachi. The bill was rejected by the majority lawmakers in the house that directly supported the Sindh government to retain the existing law. The Sindh Senior Education Minister Nisar Khuhro had already opposed tabling of the bill.
MQM's Syed Khalid Ahmed moved the bill to table in the house and said that the elected local government representatives had run successfully the KWSB in the previous tenure and would do efficiently again. The deputy speaker opted for voting on the bill tabling, instead simply allowing its introduction. The bill fell short of votes in its favour finally.
Khuhro said that the law had been amended whereby the local government election in the province had been held. He said that the law had empowered the elected representatives. He opposed the MQM's bill outright. The house adopted the MQM's three private resolutions, four private motions and 10 moves regarding the assembly's rules and regulations in the absence of its lawmakers.
On a call-attention notice, PML-N's lady lawmaker, Surath Thebo drew the Sindh government's attention towards the kidnapping of three teenage Hindu girls aged between 11 years and 15 years in Omerkot. She cried for protection to the 'weak' community, asking the government to step up to free the kidnapped girls. PML-F's female legislator, Mehatab Akbar Rashdi, said that the news reports on forced marriages of Hindu girls, their conversion to Islam and kidnapping had been making headlines in the media regularly. She slammed the government for its apathy, asking it to come out of the haplessness and take action against the culprits. She said that the government should ensure rule of law in the province.
PML-F's parliamentary leader Nand Kumar warned the government of the public anger in Omerkot regarding the kidnapping of teenage girls. He said that a larger number of the worried Hindu communities had already migrated from the area and such incidents may trigger a fresh exodus. He asked the government to get the kidnapped girls freed.
The house also passed three resolutions with unanimous vote. The first asked the government to take pre-emptive steps to hedge against the spread of swine flu that had already struck Punjab province. Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar told the lawmakers that the government had already alerted its resources to counter the swine flu onslaught.
The second one demanded of the government to upgrade civil hospital in Sanghar and appoint specialists doctors at the healthcare facility. Dahar said that the government was already taking steps to improve hospitals conditions and fill doctors' vacancies across the province. The third one asked the government to ensure indiscriminate process for the students' admissions to the Karachi University and called the existing policy against the Constitution.
The resolution asked the government to take notice of the current university policy that had three contradictory categories, detaching Karachi from Sindh in students' admissions. Khuhro said that the government would make efforts to scrape the policy. The house also adopted a private bill to establish Karachi Metropolitan University by the private sector.