Separate secretariat for South Punjab next month: Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mehmood Qureshi Wednesday said a secretariat would be set up for South Punjab province and that Rs3.5 billion had been allocated for this purpose. He said a bill will be tabled in the National Assembly for the creation of the South Punjab province soon.

Talking to media persons following the party’s meeting here, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is also Vice Chairman of the ruling PTI, said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken the decision to move forward with the process of creation of the South Punjab province and this was in line with PTI's manifesto. He was confident that the development was quite significant and would strengthen the federation.

Qureshi, who was flanked by Special Assistant to PM on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had called a meeting of the PTI parliamentary party today (Thursday) to take them into confidence on the matter. Moreover, he said that the ruling party would start reaching out to other political parties in this regard as well to ensure smooth passage of the bill. Adequate measures, he said, were being taken to fulfil the promise of a South Punjab province.

The prime minister, he said, had gone through statistics about the region and had said had there been serious efforts of alleviation of poverty, the situation would have been far better now. He said poverty would be fought the implementation of the Ehsaas Programme in the region.

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, some federal and provincial ministers from South Punjab, Punjab chief secretary and inspector general of police were present in the meeting in addition to Jahangir Tareen. Qureshi congratulated the people of South Punjab for rendering sacrifices and said that a final look for the province was now becoming a reality.

Qureshi noted that 35 percent of Punjab’s budget would be earmarked for the proposed South Punjab keeping in view its population, whereas in the past, funds for the region were promised but never allocated. He pointed out that a strategy had been thrashed out for the protection of the funds so that these could be released in one go.

The minister said that in April an additional chief secretary and an additional inspector general of police of the south would be appointed: one official would establish his/her office in Multan, while the other would set up an office in Bahawalpur. He continued that a decision had also been taken to set up a South Punjab Secretariat and that Rs3.5 billion had been allocated for this purpose.

He contended that once a province had been created, then it would also get its share from the National Finance Commission Award.

Regarding support in the Parliament for the proposed legislation, he conceded that presently, no party enjoyed a two-thirds majority in Parliament. However, he hoped that the PPP would throw its support for the bill, as Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had a viewpoint on this and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had also given statements thereon.

In the same way, he urged the PML-N leaders in the Senate and the National Assembly to convince their leadership to support the bill while referring to a statement by Mian Shahbaz Sharif, who had talked about deprivations of the region.

Playing cautiously, he said the capital of South Punjab would be decided after consultations with the government and the people. He said the two-thirds majority had been a major hurdle in enactment of the legislation, but the PML-N despite having a two-thirds majority in the past failed to do anything towards this objective.

The PPP has termed the announcement of government of creating new province as a “political drama” saying that the PTI leadership was unaware that the PPP had already passed the bill in this regard in 2013 from the Senate.

“This incapable government does not know that in 2013, the PPP had passed 24th constitutional amendment bill from the Senate of Pakistan about South Punjab province,” said senior PPP leader Haider Zaman Qureshi.

Haider Zaman said that 7th March 2013 is a historic day with regard to South Punjab province as earlier in 2012, the PPP passed unanimously a resolution about South Punjab province twice from the Punjab Assembly. “Senator Farhatullah Babar had submitted bill for South Punjab in the Senate,” he said.