LAHORE, March 30: The opposition created an embarrassing situation for the treasury by pointing out quorum when Environment Minister Makhdoom Ashfaq was summing up a general discussion on his department on Wednesday. To ‘hit hard’ the opposition selected a time when leader of the house Pervaiz Elahi, who made his appearance after a long time, had left the assembly premises just 10 minutes ago.

Deputy opposition leader Rana Sanaullah told reporters after the session was adjourned for Thursday morning for lack of quorum that he had purposely selected the time when, after departure of the provincial chief executive, most of the ruling party MPAs had also left.

“We have shown the people the interest the ruling party has in running the house as even chief minister’s offer of 100 jobs to each ruling party MPA for ensuring quorum in the house has not yielded the desired results.”

Earlier, Mr Ashfaq told the house that the government was devising a 10-year environment policy. Under it a sewage treatment plant would be set up in each town on build-operate-transfer basis besides water filtration plant at each union council.

Industries would be shifted outside cities, rickshaws and intra-city buses would be converted to CNG, all vehicles would be required to have fitness certificates renewed each year, he said. The government would also encourage re-cycling of plastic packaging material which was not degradable, banning use of chemical drums for storing food items.

Industries would be shifted outside cities as no residential schemes would be allowed around two kilometres of new industrial estates.

Those who took part in the discussion included Dr Wasim Akhtar, Nishat Afzaa, Perveen Masood Bhatti, Muhammad Waqas, Shehnaz Salim, Ashraf Kamboh, Tahira Munir, Sheikh Ijaz, Dr Muzaffar Sheikh and Samina Naveed.