KARACHI, Feb 3: The ban on recruitments in Sindh would be lifted at the end of the month, Home Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed told Sindh Assembly on Monday while speaking on an adjournment motion by Abdullah Murad of Pakistan People’s Party. The move wanted to discuss the rising unemployment in the province.

Mr Ahmad said the government was reviewing the ordinance, promulgated by the outgoing governor, under which people were retrenched without having been served a show cause notice.

Mr Murad criticized the government for depriving people of their livelihood on the pretext of rightsizing an downsizing. He said such measures amounted to the economic murder of the people, many of whom were forced to kill themselves.

He said that crime rate in the province had gone up because more and more people had been deprived of their livelihood. He also criticized government’s policies which led to the gradual closure of industries in Sindh, particularly in Karachi, and eventually resulting in. He pointed out that the outcome was shrinking opportunities for a gainful employment for the people of the province.

Irfan Gul Magsi said that owing to unemployment, young educated people were taking up arms. He called for corrective measures. Rafiq Engineer of the PPP demanded an end to the trend.

Ms Gulzar Unnar lamented that youth of Sindh got inadequate job opportunities in spite of the fact that the province contributed 70 per cent of the total revenues to the federal exchequer. Zahid Pardesi also criticized the policy of downsizing and rightsizing.

Shazia Ata Marri and Shamim Ara Panwhar were of the view that until and unless unemployment situation was addressed, law and order situation will remain precarious. Farheen Mughal criticized federal government for retrenching employees hailing from Sindh. Najmuddin Abro said that owing to the ban on employment, the educational institutions in Sindh were facing an acute shortage of teachers.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah recalled that the PPP, while in power, had provided jobs to more than 130,000 people and managed to secure foreign investment.

Some other speakers observed that the autocratic decision of the outgoing governor had appended the sense of alienation among the people of Sindh.

The Speaker, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, prorogued the session after the debate.

Earlier, he disallowed Leader of the Opposition, Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, to take up his adjournment motion regarding Thal Canal, out of turn. Law Minister Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmad opposed Mr Khuhro’s contention.

When the motion was put to vote, 34 members favoured holding of a discussion on the matter out of turn as against 43 against.

The PPP has opposed the construction of Thal canal because it believes that the project would turn Sindh into desert causing heavy losses to its people and severe damage to the agriculture and ecology.

Thal canal project, alongwith Kalabagh dam, has evoked widespread resentment in Sindh.