ISLAMABAD, March 3: The Wasim Sajjad Committee on Balochistan has recommended a complete revision of the concurrent list, announcement of the NFC award before budget , biannual meetings of the Council of Common Interests and distribution of federal resources on the basis of poverty, backwardness, unemployment and development level of provinces instead of the existing criterion of population.

This was stated by the president and parliamentary leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, while participating in a debate on Balochistan in the National Assembly on Thursday.

He rejected suggestions that a military operation was under way in Balochistan. He said the parliamentary committee would recommend reduction in the number of FC checkpoints in the province.

Chaudhry Shujaat said the parliamentary sub-committee headed by Senator Wasim Sajjad would present its final report at a meeting on March 12. The report of the Mushahid Hussain sub-committee would also come up for discussion at the meeting, he said and added that after deliberations consensus recommendations would be submitted to parliament by the Shujaat parliamentary committee on Balochistan.

He asked those members of the parliamentary committee who had distanced themselves from its proceedings to attend its meeting in order to work out consensus recommendations.

Chaudhry Shujaat pointed out that when he held the prime ministerial portfolio he had proposed the setting up of a 38-member parliamentary committee with 22 members from parties other than the ruling PML to resolve the issues relating to Balochistan and other provinces.

He said that 27 recommendations out of 31 submitted by the Mushahid sub-committee had been approved by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The recommendations, he said, included utilizing a major part of the income form oil and gas in areas where it had been found. He said the 'real' amount to be provided to Balochistan, particularly Gwadar, through a development package would surprise everyone. He said the development activity in Gwadar would bring prosperity and employment to the area.

Referring to the assault on a lady doctor in Sui, the PML president said the case had been "mishandled by the PPL management by unnecessary cover-up which was politically exploited and blown out of proportion".

He recalled the banishment of his late father Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi to Kohlu during the Bhutto rule under the Federal Crimes Rules (FCR) and his (Bhutto's) advice to the then governor Balochistan to kill him in a false encounter on his way to Quetta.

Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the then governor of Balochistan, refused to accept the advice brought to him by the then president Fazl-i-Elahi Chaudhry, saying he would not become a mercenary, the PML chief said.

That was the time, he said, when the Supreme Court made a historic decision declaring that no one could be taken for punishment to an area where FCRs applied. By then, he added, thousands had been hanged under the infamous law.

Meanwhile, the government introduced a bill in which the authority to fortnightly increase oil prices had been proposed to be transferred back to the government from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority. The house discussed the issue of heavy increase in the locally manufactured printing paper causing an exorbitant rise in the prices of textbooks and notebooks.

Fareed Paracha of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, through a call-attention notice, informed the house that the sudden increase in the paper prices by Rs2,000 per ton had created a crisis-like situation in the printing and publishing houses. He demanded that prices be restored to the level of October 12, 1999.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi said the Lahore Stock Exchange chairman had assured the government that the old paper prices would be restored. Khurshid Shah of the People's Party Parliamentarians expressed the fear that the increase might cause huge price spiral of textbooks at a time when students were appearing in examinations.

Earlier, Sherry Rehman of the PPP Parliamentarians said the government should not take the Balochistan issue lightly as "a civil war-like situation prevailed there" and added that the 'Balochistan Liberation Army' and some other groups were active in the province.