KARACHI: The Sindh government should take immediate measures to initiate a public transport scheme for the people of Karachi, demanded Muhammad Hussain Khan of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in a private resolution he tabled in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday, a private members day.

This was one of the five resolutions which were part of the order of the day.

Before the resolution was put to the vote, Senior Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, recalling the different projects the government was working on, said they had no objection to the resolution.

Earlier Mr Khan speaking briefly on his resolution highlighted the hardship of the people deploring that when the world was enjoying modern travel facilities, the people of Karachi were deprived even of the Karachi Transport Corporation and the Sindh Road Transport Corporation bus services, which had been operating till 2010, and the commuters had been left at the mercy of Qinqui and pickup operators to travel up to 20 and 25 kilometres.

The MQM lawmaker said the government had planned Metro, Green, Yellow and Orange lines in the metropolis but as the projects would take at least a couple of years, an alternative scheme be made operational to mitigate people’s suffering.

Two other resolutions were also passed unanimously after brief speeches by their pilot legislators. One resolution recommended to the Sindh government to set up two new mental rehabilitation centres in Karachi and Sukkur like the one in Hyderabad. This resolution was tabled by Saifuddin Khalid of the MQM. The other resolution was also carried unanimously when put to the vote after a brief speech by its mover, Irum Azeem Farooque. The resolution recommended to the Sindh government to approach the federal government to impose a ban on the operation of SIM cards of Afghan telecom companies in Pakistan as most of them were being used in terrorism, kidnapping for ransom and extortion here. The resolution also recommended that exemplary punishment be given to people found involved in such acts.

The two other resolutions demanded setting up of a city campus of the Sindh University in Hyderabad on the old campus of Sindh University Model School, whose notice was given by Muhammad Dilawar Qureshi of the MQM, and the other sought the provincial government approach the Punjab government asking it to withdraw the Orange Line project whose route caused structural damage to the world heritage monument of Shalamar Garden. The notice of that resolution was given by Khairun-Nisa Mughal of the PPP.

Earlier the privilege motion of Heer Ismail Soho of the MQM could not be taken up for want of her presence in the house. By the motion the attention was drawn towards non-response to her questions from the local government department which were tabled before the house on Jan 25, 2016.

The adjournment motion of Muhammad Hussain Khan, which was on the order of the day, was not pressed by the mover after local government minister Jam Khan Shoro opposing it said that the issue raised in the motion about occupation by influential land mafia of a hundred acres of KMC land in Manghopir did not belong to the KMC as such the motion was hypothetical. Senior minister for parliamentary affairs Nisar Ahmad Khuhro assured the house that the encroachment on government land by the land mafia in the Manghopir area would be got vacated. He said a committee would be set up to get the land vacated and the house would be informed about the action taken by the government.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2016