KARACHI, June 16: Senior Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed has said that no move to relieve the Rangers of the security duties assigned by the Sindh government is under consideration at the moment.
He was responding to a question at his post-budget press conference here on Saturday. He said the provincial government was spending around Rs400 million annually on the Rangers’ operations and the funds were reimbursed later by the federal government.
Regarding recruitment, he said 25,000 to 30,000 vacancies in various departments would be filled this year.
Rejecting the opposition’s objection to the presentation of budget without the announcement of the NFC Award, he pointed out that the interim Award-2005 announced by the president under Article 160 of the Constitution was valid up to 2010.
He said that the Sindh government had conveyed its comments on a future NFC Award to the federal government. These views, he said, covered all issues and concerns like provincial autonomy, composition of the NFC commission, devolution of sales tax head to the provinces, etc.
When his attention was drawn to the ever-increasing spending, already having crossed the figure of Rs19 billion, and no improvement in the law and order situation, the Minister for Local Bodies Mohammad Hussain, who was accompanying Mr Ahmed, intervened to explain that the actual problem was inadequate strength of the police personnel and essential resources. He pointed out that no police station had strength of more than 10 policemen and a couple of mobile vans. He rejected the allegations that Pajeros and Land Cruisers were being purchased from the funds.
Syed Sardar Ahmed told journalists that a fund with the name of ‘Sindh Social Security Fund’ had been created some two years back and its financial strength had now risen to Rs6 billion. “A very ambitious social welfare scheme is under consideration with the aim of providing individual insurance cover to the entire Sindh population,” he said, adding that the scheme was being designed on the pattern of the social security schemes in the US and UK.
Regarding the provision of potable water to various towns and villages, he said there were more than 58,000 settlements across the province where clean drinking water could not be supplied easily.
Minister for Planning and Development Shoaib Bokhari, Additional Chief Secretary Ghulam Serwar Khero, Secretary Finance Malik Asrar and Secretary Information Fasihuddin Khan were also present at the press conference.
Mr Khero, replying to some questions, told the journalists that a coal-fired power plant would cost lesser than those powered by some other fuel. That was the reason, he added, more than 50 per cent of the power plants in Europe and China and 65 per cent of those in India were coal-based units.
Regarding the government’s failure to materialise the installation of coal-fired power generation plants in Thar, he said there were differences over the rates.
