ISLAMABAD, June 20: President General Pervez Musharraf would announce that work on Kalabagh and Bhasha dams would begin this year, Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi said in the Senate on Monday. The minister was responding to a point of order about his statement appearing in the press that the president had approved the construction plan of Kalabagh dam after having taken the leaders of four provinces into confidence and that work on the dam would start this year.

He said he had not mentioned about the president’s approval of the project but had said that Gen Musharraf had completed consultations with the leadership during his visits to the four provinces and that he would invariably announce construction of both the dams this year.

The upper house, which met after a two-day gap, fell short of treasury members in sufficient numbers, forcing a delay of one and a half hours the beginning of the session.

A senator from Balochistan Aslam Buledi condemned what he called the criminal role of the Balochistan government in the destruction of revenue record of 300,000 acres of Gwadar land in order to grab it and distribute it among its functionaries.

He said the prime minister had ordered an inquiry into the matter on a letter from Federal Minister Zobaida Jalal “but when we were making a hue and cry on huge embezzlements in the Gwadar project, we were described as enemies of development”.

Treasury senator Rozina Alam slammed what she termed feudals’ tight grip on the countryside. She cited an episode of Sargodha where a few zamindars beat up two poor girls and then made them parade naked. The culprits remained out of the reach of law enforcers and were threatening to gun down anyone who came to the rescue of the victims, she added.

The house admitted an adjournment motion seeking a debate on the alleged involvement of Islamabad police in a number of organized crimes like robberies, car lifting, etc.

The mover, Prof Khurshid Ahmed, based his motion on a recent newspaper report which, he said, had cited a number of examples in which the capital police had been found guilty of connivance with criminals.

Dr Shahzad Wasim, Minister of State for Interior, however, confronted the mover by saying that it was wrong to say that the entire police force was inept and involved in crimes.

He gave example of two policemen who had refused to accept huge bribe and arrested two robbers while on the run after they had stolen Rs3.3 million from a bank.

Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro reserved ruling on a question of privilege raised by Envar Baig of PPP Parliamentarian and others against the chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board for breaching the privilege of the house by refusing to submit the board’s amended draft constitution after having made a commitment to this effect during a Senate house committee meeting.

He said he will give his ruling after consulting the chairman of the standing committee.

Mr Baig said the PCB chairman, in his appearances before the Senate committee on sports, had backed out after committing that he will submit the draft amendments as soon as these were finalized but then refused to oblige in the last meeting, saying that he would first send the draft to the PCB patron (the president).

The issue triggered quite a debate in which leader of the opposition and some other lawmakers also took part to contend that mere refusal to submit the draft to the house committee before being sent to the patron was tantamount to breach of privilege.

The sports minister came out very strongly in support of the PCB chief as he said that lawmakers could forward their suggestions about the draft constitution, if any, and that the draft was sent to the president as per procedure.

The chairman ruled out of order a question of privilege raised by PPP Parliamentarians’ Farhatullah Babar about the defence minister’s refusal to attend house standing committee on defence to reply questions about the sale of a sugar mills by the Fauji Foundation “in a dubious deal”.