PESHAWAR: The provincial assembly on Tuesday amended the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, to authorise the boards of governors at the medical teaching institutions to create and abolish posts without involving themselves in the lengthy bureaucratic procedure.

A new clause was inserted in Section 7 of the law, which empowered the board of governors of the respective MTIs to create, re-designate or abolish posts provided that while creating posts, the financial implications do not exceed the approved annual budget.

Under the amended law, the government will provide a ‘single line’ budget to the MTIs.

Health minister Shahram Tarakai tabled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Amendment) Act, 2016, on the floor of the house, which passed it unanimously.

The minister said with the empowerment of the respective BoGs, doctors would be appointed to the hospitals through a speedy procedure when the need arose.

He said under the prevalent procedure, the appointment of doctors and other employees took a lot of time with patents being the ultimate sufferers.

KP Assembly amends MTI Reforms Act 2015 unanimously

He said the provincial government had promulgated the MTI reforms law last year at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital in Abbottabad and that it would gradually be extended to five other hospitals of the province.

Earlier, PTI lawmaker Qurban Khan raised the issue of low payments to the owners of 8,000 kanals of land secured by the previous government for the Pakistan-China Economic Zone (Industrial Estate).

On a point of order, he said the land in question was purchased at the rate of Rs15,000 per kanal in Swabi though the land in the same area was purchased for the construction of motorway in 1996 at the rate of Rs300,000.

He said it was injustice to the landowners to purchase the land by force at such a low rate.

The MPA demanded that Speaker Asad Qaiser form a house committee to introduce amendments to the relevant rules to prevent landowners from suffering huge losses.

“The purchased land is very precious because it is located on the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway in front of two housing schemes,” he said.

Later, he told Dawn that a large number of landowners had refused to take the money of their land and instead, they had gone to the court for justice.

He said a commission formed by the court had proposed the price of the designated land at Rs800,000 per kanal.

The lawmaker said few days ago, when the relevant officials came for land possession, the locals protested and as a result, the police registered FIRs against them.

The house also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Antiquities Bill, 2016, for the protection, preservation, development and maintenance of antiquities in the province and to encourage research related antiquities and for matters connected.

The new law defines antiquity as any ancient product of human activity which has been in existence for a period of not less than 100 years while in the previous law it was 75.

According to it, the government shall establish a conservation heritage board for scientific conservation and seeking guidance of competent professionals regarding conservation, restoration, protection, promotion of cultural heritage of the province.

Also, the government shall establish antiquities trade control wings within the directorate. The officers to be posted in the wings shall be trained in the relevant laws and for checking, examining and controlling illicit trade and export of antiquities in coordination with the custom officers and shall be posted at important exit points in the province.

The law states the government shall establish a Training Cell and Conservation Laboratory working under the directorate for capacity building of the professionals in the field of archaeology, museology, conservation, heritage management.

The house also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The speaker later adjourned the session until Friday.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2016