SUKKUR: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah has said that Pakistan is no longer in a position to afford taking any risks in the Saudi Arabia-Yemen conflict as the country is still reeling from the effect of the Afghan war.

The country should pursue an impartial foreign policy based on mutual respect and love for peace, said Mr Shah while talking to journalists at the inauguration ceremony of the Computerised Domicile Registration Centre at the deputy commissioner’s office here on Wednesday.

He said that in an age of universal competition among nations only those people could survive who were the fittest.

Rapid increase in the population posed a major obstacle to national progress, he said and called for concerted efforts to contain population.

Mr Shah said the country had failed to take the path to prosperity and development because of lack of proper planning.

“Even our neighbouring country Bangladesh has succeeded in controlling its swelling population,” he said.

He said that it was a great misfortune that the government could not even succeed in providing clean drinking water to the population. A survey about poverty in the country was conducted during the last PPP government, according to which, total poverty ratio was 67 per cent and only 48 to 70 per cent children were going to schools, he said.

Mr Shah said that another project of data collection about government employees was also about to be introduced in Sukkur, which would help identify the people doing double jobs and getting salaries for more than one jobs.

About law and order situation in Sindh, he said the situation was quite satisfactory in the province. The ratio of kidnapping for ransom, car and motorcycle snatching had now decreased, he said.

Mr Shah later said at a meeting with a delegation of successful candidates of Civil Services Academy that there was no doubt about the important role the bureaucrats played in the development and prosperity of a country because it was the bureaucracy which actually ran the system.

He advised the delegation to visit the areas where the poor lived and prepare projects for them after identifying their problems.

Later he inaugurated the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Digital Library at his alma mater, the Government Islamia Science College. He had graduated from the college in 1980’s.

He participated in a ceremony to encourage police officials at Police Line and distributed appreciation certificates amongst police officers.

Earlier, the in-charge of the Domicile Registration Centre said that the centre had been established under public-private partnership with a total cost of Rs4 million.

It could process and prepare a document within an hour after a payment of Rs520 per domicile, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015

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