LAHORE: Focus on poor state of health facilities in rural Punjab
By Amjad Mahmood
LAHORE, Sept 9: "Enough is not being done for mitigating miseries of the poor living in small towns and villages."
This was observed by the Punjab Assembly chair being held by ruling party MPA from Sheikhupura Rai Ijaz Ahmad when general discussion on health was opened in the house on Thursday, putting the treasury in an embarrassing position.
"For God sake, do something for the rural people," the chair asked health minister Tahir Javed. "We have ignored them after being elected as MPAs." Rai Ijaz regretted that all facilities were being extended to people of Lahore while nothing was being done for those living in other areas.
He said that at least the district governments should be directed to allocate sufficient funds for the DHQ hospitals. These remarks of the chair embarrassed the treasury as the health minister was about to detail the healthcare measures taken by the government.
Communications and Works Minister and Punjab PML general secretary Zaheeruddin immediately stood up to tell the chair that some harsh remarks had been made from its side before the minister could give details of the steps taken for the public welfare.
Later, the minister explained the measures taken for improving service conditions of medical officers and paramedical staff, establishment of new health centres and provision of state-of-the-art machinery there, and introduction of hospital waste management and wireless-equipped new ambulance service.
Earlier, Muzammalur Rashid Abbasi, a ruling party member from Bahawalpur, and parliamentary secretary Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan "attempted" on two different occasions to put the treasury on defensive side.
Mr Abbasi challenged parliamentary secretary for planning and development Zille Huma Usman what she had said about the performance of the Cholistan Development Authority in response to a written question during the question hour.
Abbasi said the pipes laid for the provision of potable water in the area were substandard and cracked when water was released. Mrs Usman, being fed information through chits by officials of her department sitting in visitors' gallery, denied that any substandard material had been used in the project.
But Abbasi said he was son of the soil and knew the area very well as well as the irregularities committed in the execution of the water supply project. He said he could dig out and show the cracked pipes if some house committee was formed for the purpose.
Law minister Raja Basharat came to the rescue of the parliamentary secretary and asked Abbasi to accompany the CDA director-general to the area on Saturday (Sept 11) and point out the faults.
He assured the house that not only the faults would be removed but also action would be taken against negligent officials. PML-N's Rana Sanaullah demanded that a special day should be fixed for discussing irregularities in the Rs400 million project. The chair rejected the demand as the law minister opposed it.
MMA's Muhammad Waqas wondered that only three days were given for submitting tenders for the huge project while under the law one month period must be given for submitting tenders even for a Rs50,000 project.
He was told that as the project was being funded by the Asian Development Bank, the rule did not apply on it. Mr Khan on Thursday again demanded an immediate general discussion by suspending relevant rules on the role of private schools.
The law minister though foiled his bid, the general consensus of the house on the issue forced the education minister to concede to the demand of forming a special committee for investigating the issue and coming out with some laws to regulate the sector. The minister would submit names of the committee members on Friday (today). Mr Khan had earlier raised the issue on Wednesday.
