KARACHI, June 28: Speakers at a seminar here on Thursday said that a genuine autonomy for provinces was a must to ensure complete harmony among all federating units. Grant of full autonomy to the provinces would be a step forward in removing mistrust among the federating units, they said.

The seminar on ‘Inter-Provincial Coordination: A tool for National Harmony’ was organised by the Inter-Provincial Coordination Department and presided over by the Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination, Dr Sohrab Sarki. Sindh Ombudsman Yousuf Jamal was the chief guest.

In his presidential remarks, Dr Sarki, appealed to the civil society to extend its cooperation to the government in doing away with the concurrent list which was supposed to be reviewed in 1983. He was of the view that if equal rights for citizens of every province were ensured, this would greatly help eliminate prejudices and differences among populations of each two provinces and creating harmony at national level.

Ombudsman Yousuf Jamal said that a federation could flourish only through understanding among its components and by upholding the principle of give and take.

Provincial secretary Ashfaq Memon suggested setting up of an independent commission to observe whether citizens of all provinces were getting equal rights in all spheres of life and their quality of life was improving. He said the commission should prepare its report every five to 10 years and forward it to the parliament.

Well-known journalist Sajjad Mir said that every military dictatorship had left behind trails of problems one of them being mistrust among provinces. A continuous dialogue among the federating units could help remove the mistrust, he added..

Former provincial secretary Mehtab Akbar Rashdi stressed the need for sincere efforts towards creating inter-provincial harmony.

Another provincial secretary Aftab Memon observed that every federal institution was bent upon acquiring lands in Sindh free of cost although Article 151 of the Constitution makes it mandatory upon the federation to negotiate a mutual agreement with a province for the purpose.

Prof Tanvir Khalid regretted that even after 60 years of its existence, the country was still searching for its national identity.