October 04, 2006	Wednesday	Ramazan 10, 1427

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LAHORE, Oct 3: Opposition members walked out of the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday in protest against what they called `poor performance’ of the ministers in the house.

The token boycott was in reaction to the statement of Industries Minister Afzal Cheema that he was unaware whether the motion pertaining to spurious cola sales in the province related to his department. The opposition returned after four minutes.

The chair had earlier deferred debate on six adjournment and two privilege motions for Wednesday (today) besides keeping the University of Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi (Amendment) Bill 2004 and the University of the Punjab (Amendment) Bill 2006 pending on the requests of ministers Arshad Lodhi and Imran Masood.

Minister for Food Chaudhry Iqbal requested the chair to keep pending all motions related to the home department as Law Minister Raja Basharat was not present in the house.

Deputy Opposition Leader Rana Sanaullah, on a point of order, asked there would be no business in the house in the absence of a minister.

Minister for Communications Chaudhry Zaheeruddin said the motion pertaining spurious cola sales had yet to be assigned to any department. The government, he claimed, was taking measures to stop this illegality.

Rana Sanaullah said the motion was submitted on Aug 18 and ironically it had yet to be decided to which department it belonged to. “It is the outcome of poor governance. Many government departments have been bifurcated into three to four wings, each headed by a minister,” he said.

MMA member Arshad Baggu said after submission every motion was sent to the department or minister concerned.

The chair asked all the ministers to direct their departments to submit detailed answers of all the motions at the earliest.

The chair adjourned the house to meet again on Wednesday at 10am.

BURN CENTRE: Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed said on Tuesday that a modern burn centre was being set up here at Jinnah Hospital at a cost of Rs 900 million.

Responding to various queries about health sector during the question hour, he said it would be a state of the art centre in the sub-continent, with six operation theatres and 65 beds, including 15 for ICU. A helipad would also be established at the centre’s rooftop for use in emergency.

The minister said the department would provide land and faculty for the centre to be constructed jointly by Punjab government, Pakistan Baitul Maal and Jinnah Hospital, and it would be completed by December 2007.

He said a similar centre was also under construction at the Nishtar Hospital, Multan, while PC-1 for the Allied Hospital (Faisalabad) burn center was being prepared. The minister said that these centres were being set up on population basis.

To a supplementary question by Opposition MPA Haji Muhammad Ejaz, the minister said patients requiring CT-scan were referred to the Lahore General, Mayo and Services hospitals after the old CT-scan machine at Jinnah Hospital was declared out of order on Dec 31, 2002.

To another question, the minister said the government was also planning to ensure CT-scan facility in public sector hospitals of all the 35 districts of the province.

Speaker Afzal Sahi who was in chair directed the health minister to ensure availability of anti-venom and anti-rabies at hospitals in rural and far-flung areas.

He gave the direction when Khizar Ilyas Virk said that two minor brothers had died of snake bite at Narowal.

Dr Tahir told the house that National Institute of Health (NIH) was the sole research centre of the country producing vaccines of various kinds and also supplying the same to the hospitals.