The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is financing province-wide roads construction with $197 million to help improve transportation links, Sindh Senior Minister for Education Nisar Khuhro told the Sindh Assembly on Friday. Replying to a call attention notice by PML-F's parliamentary party leader, Nand Kumar, the minister said that the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) had approved the project in November 2015.
The ADB-funded project that envisages construction of 328 kilometres of roads will start in June 2016, he said.
The government had released Rs270.84 million in fiscal year 2014-15 to construct a road from Tando Adam to Kandyari, he replied to the PML-F's legislator, Jam Madad Ali Khan. He said that the road was widely developed and the Oil and Gas Development Corporation would finish the remaining work since it had its installations there.
Earlier, Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani ruled that the officials of Census Commission of Pakistan should be invited to the house for an in-camera briefing to ascertain reasons behind delay in undertaking population counting process in the province. The officials should be called on the next Saturday to brief the lawmakers on the issue.
Nisar Khuhro said that census had not been held in the country since last 18 years. He said there was confusion about census owing to federal government's `ambiguous' policy concerning the population counting.
Leader of the Opposition in the house, MQM's Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan, urged the government to consider all the proposals that are likely to be discussed at the chief minister's all parties conference on census.
Nisar Khuhro said that the FIA raided the BOL media house and stopped its operation before its going on-air. Till now, he said that it had been unclear whether what had caused the suspension of the TV channel that ended up jobs of 22,000 employees. He sought the Speaker's permission for tabling a resolution on the issue of BOL TV. Speaking in favour of such a resolution, Izhar-ul-Hasan said that the federal government should ensure transparency in this connection. The Speaker expressed his sympathies with the jobless employees of BOL, but refused to take up a resolution over the issue of BOL TV, saying the matter is sub judice.