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LAHORE, Oct 2: The Punjab Assembly was told on Monday that a proposal to bring private medical laboratories and other facilities under the tax net was under consideration of the provincial government.
The announcement was made by Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed in response to an issue raised by Allauddin Sheikh, a treasury member, reports APP.
Mr Sheikh was of the view that drug manufacturing companies, private clinical labs and hospitals were earning 100-1000 per cent profit and that their earnings go unaccounted.
He said a Karachi-based diagnostic lab was charging Rs15,000 for conducting a hepatitis test. With no check on high charges, such a facility was beyond the reach of the common man, he said, adding that the same was the case with specialist doctors who earned huge amounts and could afford frequent foreign trips with their families.
“These specialists are neither ready to pay taxes nor reduce their fees, and there is no effective check on their practice,” he said.
The minister said that the government was providing medical test facilities at three to four times lower rates than private medical centres.
BILLS PASSED: The provincial assembly on Monday passed the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Bill 2005 and Punjab Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill 2006.
Law Minister Basharat Raja who presented both the bills said amendments to the Punjab Civil Servants Bill 2006 were aimed at infusing confidence, promoting equality and avoiding undue favouritism to civil servants.
It would also bring the Punjab Civil Servants Act 1974 in harmony with the laws related to civil servants at the federal level. The amendments would also help avoid legal complications in seniority cases.
Opposition member Arshad Baggu, speaking on a point of order, informed the house that the opposition did not press its amendments to the Punjab Employees, Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Bill 2005 due to its earlier agreement with the treasury.
Our Staff Reporter adds: The law minister told the house during the question hour that five new women police stations would be set up in the province during the current year.
Women police stations were already working at Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad and the provincial government had approved setting up of another five for which resources would be provided, he said in response to various questions.
All the recruitments were being made on merit in the province and not a single person had been employed in violation of the merit, the minister claimed.
Parliamentary Secretary for Jails Fazal Sumra told the house that separate women prisons had been set up at Rawalpindi and Faisalabad while a proposal to establish a juvenile prison at Rawalpindi was under consideration.
“District and sessions judges regularly visit prisons in the province and set women involved in petty crimes at liberty,” he said and added to release women from prisons was the task of the courts of law and not the government.
The parliamentary secretary told the house in response to a question of Samina Naveed of the PPP that the government had spent Rs40 million on the purchase of land to set up more prisons for women and children in the Punjab.
PRIVILAGE MOTIONS: Speaker Afzal Sahi sent the privilage motion submitted by Qamar Hayat Kathia against the Jhang DCO to the house committee while kept the motion of Mehr Ishtiaq pending for Tuesday.
Mr Kathia had said in the motion that the Jhang DCO first refused to see him on the pretext that he had a headache. The second time Mr Kathia was asked to come after two days or so on the ground that the DCO was busy in a meeting while actually he was sitting with a friend.
Minister for Food Chaudhry Iqbal informed the house the DCO was ready to hold a meeting with Mr Kathia. However, if the speaker wanted to send the motion to the house committee on the insistence of the mover, Mr Iqbal said he had no objection.
Minister for Housing Raza Gilani informed the house on the motions of opposition members Ehsanullah Waqas, Asghar Ali Gujjar and Samiullah Khan the water being supplied to the residents of Lahore was according to the standards of the World Health Organisation.
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was conducting a detailed analysis of the water in question. In the light of the PAEC report, water filtration plants would be installed at union council level.
Opposition members Samiullah Khan and Ehsanullah Waqas said some 150 filtration plants would not be enough to provide clean water to a population of seven million. The need of the hour, they said, was to install filtration plants on all the 300 Wasa tubewells in the city.
