Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: As the government has announced the schedule for holding census across the country, parliamentarians belonging to Balochistan and Sindh on Thursday expressed some reservations and claimed that under the current circumstances it would be difficult to conduct transparent counting.

Senator Mir Kabeer Ahmed Muhammad Shahi of the National Party (NP) submitted an adjourned motion in the Senate, which was discussed for its admissibility. Speaking about the admissibility of the motion, he said that about three million refugees were living in Balochistan, while some Baloch had migrated to relatively safer districts.

He said this because the population census was directly related to change in the number of National Assembly seats and other financial matters.

Senator Mir Kabeer said that the teachers would also not be in a position to move freely for census operation due to disturbance in Balochistan. Keeping in view such circumstances, it would be difficult to conduct fair and transparent census in the province, he maintained.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Sassui Palijo also expressed some reservations and said that census was going to be held after a gap of 19 years, but some of the UN standard rules were not being followed for the upcoming census.

Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar strongly opposed Mir Kabeer’s point of view about census.

Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani referred the matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and directed its chairman Saleem Mandviwala to invite every senator who had some reservations about the population census and submit the report within 30 days.

Senator Taj Haider raised the issue of outsourcing the management of airports in the country. He said that the House had been informed the other day that the government had no intension to outsource the management of the airports, but there was an advertisement, which he presented in the House, in which the government invited tenders for outsourcing some airports of the country. The senator claimed that it was a sensitive and security matter. Through such a way the government would first outsource the management of airports and later would privatise them, he said. Other countries of the globe were spending more money on the security of their airports, while in Pakistan the government was planning to give it to the private sector, he lamented.

The Senate chairman referred the matter to the Senate Standing Committee of the Cabinet with directives to report on the matter within a month.

Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Jehanzeb Jamaldini and others regarding the termination of services of 21 trainee apprentices (BPS-7), most of them possessing the domicile of Balochistan, during their probation period who were later to be recruited in different trades after completing their mandatory trainings from the Survey Training Institute, Islamabad, State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali told the House that 21 trainees – 18 from Balochistan and three from Punjab – had been terminated because they could not qualify for the exam conducted by the Punjab Technical Board, which was mandatory.

He said on the directives of the Senate, the ministry would provide one chance to them to reappear in the exam, and they would be reinstated if they qualified. The chair referred the matter to the Standing Committee on Defence with directives for transparent conduct of the examination.

Responding to another calling attention notice moved by Agha Shahbaz Khan Durrani regarding the non-payment of salaries to the immigration and passport officers posted in various Pakistani missions abroad and disparity in the benefits being provided to them and the officers of other ministries posted in those missions, State Minister for Interior Muhammad Balighur Rehman told the House that a supplementary grant of Rs 138 million had been received and all the payments would be made within a month.

The Senate was also informed that Rs 120 million had been allocated for the Ministry of Human Rights during the last three years for different development projects. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmad told the House during the question hour that the funds were spent for the completion of 12 Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Human Rights Centres for women in Punjab. He said that work was also underway on the construction of working women’s hostels in sectors G-6 and G-7 of Islamabad and land had been acquired for that purpose. He said that a helpline for legal advice on human rights violations had also been set up in the federal capital.