LAHORE: The Punjab government held a five-hour long provincial cabinet meeting with nine-point agenda at chief minister’s secretariat late on Monday and approved Rs8 billion Ramzan package and wheat procurement policy.

The 52nd meeting also discussed the political situation in the wake of no-confidence motion at the Centre and ‘disgruntled’ factions, particularly the Jahangir Tareen group, within the party. The Tareen group has the support of two ministers and four advisers.

The group had already boycotted the provincial cabinet meeting taking a plea that its members would not attend any meeting chaired by Chief Minister Buzdar since it was demanding removal of the CM.

According to the Ramzan package, the 10kg flour bag would be sold at Rs450 in Ramzan bazaars as the government would provide around Rs4bn subsidy under this head. Similarly, 13 food items would be provided at the rates of the previous year in Ramzan bazaars. The one kg sugar bag would be sold for Rs10 less than the market price. Similarly, chicken would be available at Rs10 less per kg and eggs at Rs5 per dozen less.

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The province would set up 317 Ramzan bazaars - 30 in Lahore, 19 in Faisalabad, 16 each in Rawalpindi and Gujranwala and 12 each in Kasur and Bahawalpur - from last week of Sha’aban where agri-fair price shops would also be established to provide eatables at affordable rates. These bazaars would serve as Eid bazaars after Ramzan 20.

The cabinet also approved wheat procurement policy 2022-23 to purchase 3.5 million tonnes grain at the rate of Rs2,200 per maund. The procurement target would be enhanced, if needed, and the meeting further decided to effectively curtail the illegal movement of the commodity. An eight-member provincial level committee was also formulated to procure wheat. The monitoring committees would monitor the procurement process at different levels. Temporary staff would also be hired for the purpose.

The cabinet decided to hand over the administration of four nationalised missionary schools, which were nationalised in 1973, to the US Presbyterian Church and approved the act for new universities to be set up in Attock, Toba Tek Singh, Rajanpur, Hafizabad, Pakpattan, Gujranwala, Taunsa, Kamalia, Layyah and Dera Ghazi Khan. The new universities can only set up sub-campuses in their respective districts only.

It also approved a new search committee, comprising Rector NUST retired Lt-Gen Javed Mahmood Bukhari, Prof. Akmal Hussain, Syed Tahir Shahbaz, Chairperson PHEC and secretary higher education department, for posting of VC of Punjab University.

Sources say the higher education department had also proposed the name of Akhuwat CEO Dr Amjad Saqib but Usman Buzdar got it removed. They claim that the higher education department would, however, notify the new committee after intelligence reports [about the members] from agencies.

The Punjab higher education department had prepared and finalised a Model University Act for all the new universities in the province and presented it to the cabinet. However, the chief minister’s office instructed the higher education department to withdraw the agenda for the time being.

“The proposed Model University Act for the new universities was withdrawn on the instructions of the chief minister’s office and now the cabinet approved the existing Act that govern public sector universities,” a cabinet member told Dawn.

The member said the Model University Act would be implemented for the new universities at some later stage.

It approved to construct a graduate girls college over 34 kanal land in Sikandria Colony in Lahore along with the approval of 15,000 acres Cholistan land for military schedule. Conditional approval of a settlement between PSCA and Huawei was granted as the company would conduct upkeep of CCTVs for two years.

The proceedings of the 80th to 84th meetings of the cabinet standing committee for the legislation were also endorsed.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2022