KARACHI, May 15: The City Council on Wednesday deferred the draft resolution pertaining to purchase of vehicles for the fire department of city government owing to reports that the department might be transferred to the Sindh government, and called for disciplinary action against the concerned officer for ignoring this point before sending the draft while nine other resolutions enlisted in the agenda were approved.

The city council resumed the second day working of its current session at about 3.30pm and serious debate from all groups was witnessed against the draft of first proposal which demanded Rs13.85 million for the purchase of vehicles for the fire department.

The council members argued that since there was a move to centralise all fire departments under the provincial setup, the draft be deferred till a clear picture emerges.

A resolution, presented by Muslim Pervaiz, requesting for postponement of the draft was approved unanimously, which soon followed another one demanding action against the official who had prepared the draft.

The second resolution was presented by Siddique Rathore, which criticised the concerned DO for not cross-checking all related information before presenting it to the House.

The council approved two resolutions, presented by Muslim Pervaiz and Haji Manzoor Mohammadi, and demanded of the city council to ban production and sale of polythene bags in Karachi.

They maintained that polythene bags were the main cause of blockade of drains and gutters in Karachi besides bags float all over the city and gets entangled with wires, bushes etc.

The House adopted two other resolutions deploring the 15 per cent sales tax on medicines. These resolutions were presented by Muslim Pervaiz and Siddique Rathore.

Five resolutions demanding honorarium to the members of the House were presented by Syeda Shazia Bano, Tahira Kokab, Zameer Siddiqui, Aftab Ahmed, Muslim Pervaiz, Najmi Alam, Kafeel Jafri, Siddique Rathore, Zahida Ibrahim, Rukhsana, Riffat Naheed, Tasneem Kausar and Shamim Mumtaz.

These members referred to clause 39(Q) of SLGO 2001 and demanded a monthly honorarium of Rs25,000 for City Naib Nazim. Different resolutions proposed different honorarium for the council members ranging from Rs15,000 to Rs10,000 per month.—PPI