KARACHI, Oct 30: Federal Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Salim Saifullah Khan said that decentralisation and provincial autonomy were the needs of the hour and urged bureaucrats, who usually looked to the western countries for models, to look towards China and learn how it had decentralized.
He was speaking at a seminar on “Inter-provincial harmony —how and why” organized here on Tuesday by the inter-provincial coordination (IPC) department.
Speakers also stressed that equitable distribution of resources and harmony among the federating units were the most important factors to strengthen the country.
They said that the issues between the federating units and between the provinces and the federation must be sorted out through dialogue.
They said that constitutional forums and organizations such as the council of common interests and national economic council should be made functional and inter-provincial conferences, as provided under the law, should be held regularly to sort out the issues.
Salim Saifullah Khan said that labelling people who demanded their rights as traitors should be stopped and instead, they should be brought into the dialogue process so that their points of view could be heard and their just grievances could be addressed.
He said that the IPC ministry, through dialogue, had taken a consensus decision and increased the federal job quota of Balochistan from its earlier 3.5 per cent to six per cent as the population had increased. The increased 2.5 per cent quota had been slashed from the 10 per cent merit quota. He said that almost all the decisions between the federation and the province had been taken with consensus as the provinces had joined hands. But the issues between the provinces were difficult to solve, yet efforts were being made to solve these as well, he claimed.
He suggested that political parties should practice national politics and though there was nothing wrong with wanting to win the elections and form a government, they should also learn to sit in the opposition if that is what the people decide in the polls.
Sindh IPC Minister Sohrab Sarki said that inter-provincial interaction between the people was necessary and should be encouraged and particularly study visits of delegations of writers, poets, academics, journalists, sportspersons, etc should be arranged regularly so that the people could have first-hand experiences of each others’ cultures. He also suggested that an all-parties conference be called to discuss the issue of the NWFP that was snowballing with each passing day, so that a consensus decision could be taken.
Federal IPC Secretary Suhail Safdar, citing an example of protecting the rights of the provinces taken over by the federal organisations, said that the ministry had taken a consensus decision to hand over the fishing rights to the provinces for the Khanpur, Chashma, and Tarbela reservoirs, which were earlier handled by Wapda, which had no right over these as its job was to generate electricity.
Former chief secretary Saeed Siddiqui said that the provinces, at the time of partition, had joined Pakistan out of choice but after some time, a large number of people felt that they were not getting their rights. He suggested that equitable share should be given to all the federating units.
Lessons from the past
Ziauddin University Vice-Chancellor Shahid Siddiqui said that the country in the past had suffered a lot owing to the loss of provincial harmony and the creation of Bangladesh was a glaring example, as the people in the former East Pakistan felt that they were not getting their rights, so they chose their own path. He suggested that steps be taken to satisfy the people as presently, citizens in some of the provinces were dissatisfied with the current situation. NWFP IPC Secretary Maj (retd) Attaullah Khan said that it was unfortunate that the majority of political parties were based in one province only and that many of the federal bureaucrats also tried to serve in the provinces of their origin. Punjab IPC Secretary Maj (retd) Zulqarnain Aamir suggested inter-provincial marriages, free movement of workforce, exchange of students from one province to the other etc would help in furthering harmony. He also suggested that more federal subjects be handed over to the provinces.
Sindh IPC Secretary Shahzar Shamoon said that resources should be distributed among all the federating units to create provincial harmony which, in turn, would strengthen the country. Dr Tanvir Khalid of Karachi University and others also spoke at the seminar that began over an hour-and-a-half behind schedule as a sufficient number of audience members did not come on time, though the speakers had arrived early. Balochistan IPC Minister Sherjan Baloch came almost at the end of the seminar.
