LAHORE, March 28: The housing, urban development and public health engineering minister, rejecting objections by the opposition, insisted that fountains and greenbelts must be considered as recreational parks.

Syed Ali Raza Gilani was responding to a supplementary query by Lala Shakilur Rahman during the Punjab Assembly question hour on Monday about the development of new parks by the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) in Lahore after Racecourse and Gulshan-i-Iqbal parks.

“The PHA has developed 18 new parks after the Racecourse and the Gulshan-i-Iqbal. These include fountains at Husain Chowk in Gulberg and on Shami Road in Cantonment, development of Data Darbar ground, Jail Road and Gulberg Main Boulevard greenbelts and Wassanpura Park-II,” he said amid objections by the opposition members.

“You’ve now named parks as fountains,” Lala Shakil wondered, getting no response from the minister, who had again started reading aloud a list of the “new parks” from his papers.

Replying to another supplementary question about work-charge employees in Wasa, Mr Gilani said the employees could not be regularized because their pension and other dues would eat away the entire budget of the department.

MMA’s Arshad Baggu said the workers be at least offered contract jobs. The minister said 100 new contractual jobs had been created in the agency. Mr Gilani, while answering a written question by PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah, said the department was working on a proposal to mention in square feet instead of kanals the minimum piece of land required for setting up a CNG station.

The Rana had demanded that as a kanal piece of land in Lahore was 4,500 feet and in Faisalabad 5,400 feet so the department, while issuing an NoC for the CNG station, must mention the required land in feet to ensure equality between NoC seekers of Lahore and other towns.

Earlier, Sheikh Alauddin of the ruling PML took oath as MPA when proceedings of the house started 45 minutes late on the first day of the 19th session. The Election Commission has declared the Sheikh as elected after disqualification of Rao Shahid Qayyum (PP-181).