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ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal on Wednesday told the National Assembly that construction of the new GHQ in Islamabad would be undertaken after receiving seismic survey reports from teams of foreign experts.
In a written reply to a question of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) MNA Samia Raheel Qazi, the defence minister said the government was undertaking seismic study and survey through Turkish and Chinese teams in the light of apprehensions of a faultline in the area.
The minister said the construction of the new GHQ would be undertaken in the light of the recommendations of the reports of the two teams.
In response to a question of MMA MNA Maulana Abdul Malik, Mr Iqbal told the assembly that there were 43 cantonment boards throughout the country and the total population of the area administered by the boards was 2.971 million.
Giving province-wise breakup, the minister said 20 cantonment boards with a population of 2.053 million were in the Punjab, 11 boards were in the NWFP with a population of 265,166, eight boards with the population of 557,370 were in Sindh and four boards with 95,176 people in Balochistan.
Following are the names of each cantonment board in the country with population given in parenthesis:
PUNJAB: Attock (17,808), Sanjwal (9,039), Kamra (37,131), Rawalpindi (397,711), Chaklala (228,444), Wah (198,431), Taxila (23,653), Murree Hills (7,402), Jhelum (17,907), Mangla (13,794), Sargodha (86,493), Shorkot (25,082), Gujranwala (92,808), Kharian (48,337), Sialkot (62,105), Lahore (149,719), Walton (411,742), Okara (57,423), Multan (117,761) and Bahawalpur (50,664).
SINDH: Pano Aqil (20,418), Hyderabad (79,028), Malir (44,509), Korangi Creek (34,026), Faisal (130,074), Manora (9,987), Karachi (57,967) and Clifton (181,361).
NWFP: Abbottabad (58,174), Havelian (19,460), Murree Galis (308), Mardan (7,204), Peshawar (68,755), Nowshera (33,138), Risalpur (31,259), Cherat (2,477), Kohat (30,624), Bannu (8,907) and D.I. Khan (4,860).
BALOCHISTAN: Quetta (72,084), Loralai (5,977), Zhob (6,110) and Ormara (11,005).
Meanwhile, in response to a question of Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Amanullah Khan Jadoon told the Lower House that the prices of petroleum products had been increased five times during the financial year 2004-05.
Responding to supplementary questions of Maulana Chitrali and Rashid Akbar Khan, Parliamentary Secretary for Petroleum and Natural Resources Rao Ajmal said the prices of oil were expected to come down in the wake of reduction in oil prices in the international market.
The parliamentary secretary said the government had to suffer a loss of Rs70 billion in order to sustain oil prices in the past. He said the government owed some money to the oil companies and a large portion of it had been returned to them.
Treasury MNA Rashid Akbar Khan questioned the arguments given by the parliamentary secretary, saying the oil companies had been earning billions of rupees as profits and how could the government say that these were running in losses.
“This excuse is unacceptable and the logic given by the parliamentary secretary is not understandable,” he added.
Replying to a question of PPP MNA Yasmeen Rehman, the petroleum minister told the assembly that at present gas leakages in the pipeline system were about 23 million cubic feet per day. He said the gas companies were taking various measures to curtail the leakages.
Another PPP MNA Qamaruz Zaman Kaira claimed that there was a report issued by the chamber of commerce which stated that several factories in Gujrat were stealing gas from the pipelines. He regretted that despite the identification of the factories, no action had been taken against them.
The parliamentary secretary, however, claimed that action was being taken against those found responsible for stealing gas.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Nouraiz Shakoor informed the house that the government was considering installing pre-paid and post-paid gas metres which would help check gas theft incidents in the country.
