Daily Times

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly session on Thursday featured discussion on a recently held festival in Mohenjo Daro and a tourist site in Gorakh Hill, both featuring Provincial Minister for Education, Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Sardar Ali Shah.

The issue of Mohenjo Daro festival was raised by Nand Kumar Goklani, a lawmaker from the Grand Democratic Alliance. He questioned the minister about the need to spend so much public money on holding what he deemed to be a useless festival. In particular, he took offense to songs and dance performances during the festival. The lawmaker maintained that the money spent on the festival could have been used to build several tourist facilities in the province.

In his response, Sardar Ali Shah claimed that he was unaware of the details of the festival. He said he had no knowledge of the festival or of the money spent on it.

Meanwhile, a legislator from MQM-P Mangla Sharma questioned Shah about the Gorakh Hill tourist site. “What is the condition of Gorakh Hill?” he asked. The provincial minister replied that the site did not fall under his ministry. He said the topic should be discussed with Sardar Rafiq Ahmad Jamali, the chairman of Gorakh Hills Development Authority.

Earlier, the education minister had come under fire from the Directorate of the Private Schools. Officials from the directorate said that they sent many letters to the Education Department, but there was no response from the governmental about the status of the notice issued to private schools on the five percent increase in fees. While talking to Daily Times, the DG private schools directorate said that the Education Department is eligible to disapprove and cancel schools registration.

During the session on Wednesday, the opposition lawmakers had expressed serious concern over the situation of law and order in Karachi, and demanded solid steps to improve security in the province.

Speaking at the session, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah assured the House that the government was seriously looking into the situation. He said sincere efforts were underway to uphold peace in the province. “There have been no major terrorism incidents in the province, our law enforcement agencies have made many sacrifices for this to transpire,” he said.

On the other hand, opposition lawmaker Abdul Rashid highlighted the rising incidence of street crimes in the city. He said the number of criminal cases reported on a daily basis has increased with time and urged the government to take notice of the situation through better planning and coordination.

Meanwhile, PTI member and parliamentarian Khurram Sherzman said that the Sindh Rangers director general had said that 22,000 police officers would be deployed in the city. However, only 14,000 officers were performing duties at the moment, he said, adding that most of these officials were also on duty with very important personalities (VIP).

Published in Daily Times, November 16^th 2018.