KARACHI, May 2: Sindh cabinet in its special session that lasted for over two-hours here on Monday expressed several reservations on medium term development framework (2005-10) prepared by the planning commission on the directives of National Economic Council. Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim presided over the meeting, which was attended by all the ministers, advisers, chief secretary, additional chief secretaries and secretaries of various provincial government departments.

Following the meeting, the official sources in planning and development department said that the provincial government viewed the proposed MTDF as driven more by concept of developed, industrialized and prosperous Pakistan than its explicitness on alleviation of poverty. Moreover, it contains a distorted version of urban development with 92 per cent allocation to housing, ignoring the up-gradation of congested slum-like towns, katchi abadies and non-existing sewerage system, disposal of solid waste plans, potable water and public transport.

According to the sources, the cabinet viewed that the MTDF was also silent on dual control of urban towns by the civic and cantonment authorities that would create confusion and resultantly the conflicting decisions could be taken.

The cabinet noted that the MTDF failed to appreciate distinction between the villages in Punjab and the Goths in Sindh. According to cabinet, the province of Sindh has about 40,000 villages each having population of 200. The condition of these Goths (villages), which looked like that of Stone Age, could not improve unless widespread clusters were consolidated or the service delivery was assured to these settlements, the cabinet meeting suggested.

It was further noted that the plan did not envisage reversing the ratio of direct and indirect taxes. The fiscal reforms that seek to reduce the indirect taxes from 62.2 per cent in 2005 to 60.5 per cent by 2010 would not alleviate poverty, it observed.

The cabinet suggested that Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) should be planned to increase to GDP to seven per cent from existing 3.4 per cent by the year 2010.

It stressed on making the PSDP allocations among centre and provinces fair and transparent based on certain formula. The plan also did not address the issue of intra-regional imbalances, it noted.

According to cabinet, too much emphasis has been laid on higher education without highlighting the programme components and their linkages with targets that would aggravate income in-equities. It suggested that primary and secondary education must be focussed.

The Sindh cabinet pointed out that the intra-provincial roads had also not received mush attention in the new framework.

On housing sector, the provincial cabinet suggested that free land should be distributed among builders to build low-cost houses for the poor. In cities and towns, the flats should be constructed and similar low-cost housing schemes should be introduced in rural areas.

Meanwhile, an official handout said that a special cabinet meeting was held here Monday to consider new medium term development framework for 2005-10, proposed by the federal government.

These proposals were formulated by planning commission as an alternate to a new five-year plan, which the country has been having since 1960’s.

After detailed discussion, the cabinet meeting finalized its suggestions and expressed certain reservations on some of the proposals for onward submission to Islamabad administration.

The cabinet put on record its appreciation for the hard work done in expressing Sindh’s point of view on such an important subject by Finance Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed and Planning and Development Minister Shoaib Bukhari.

The meeting, however, approved sealing of all blood banks found indulged in substandard or illegal blood transfusion services. It approved that Sindh Safe Blood Transfusion Authority teams authorized to undertake surprise visits, if found any of the blood banks across the province failing to meet the set standards, could seal them and these banks could also not be de-sealed.

Violators of Sindh Blood Transfusion Act 1997 would also be made to undergo, non-bailable three years vigorous imprisonment, the health adviser told journalists while giving details of the cabinet meeting.

Health Adviser Faisal Malik said that individuals and institutions engaged in substandard and illegal blood transfusion were factually playing with human lives and would be strictly dealt with.

According to him, the health department also envisaged to initiate a similar exercise against quacks and non-qualified health professionals.

He mentioned that extremely serious and complicated cases, previously mishandled by quacks, were frequently reported at different government hospitals often delayed stages putting precious human lives at great risk.

Faisal Malik claimed that while all out efforts were made by doctors associated with government to treat such cases yet the troubles it caused to the masses could not be ignored.

The meeting also approved proposal for introducing legislation to ban blood banks indulging in unethical practices, including sale of unsafe blood for transfusion into human body. Faisal Malik informed the cabinet that his department had sealed a number of blood banks in the province but they somehow managed to resume their business in absence of legal cover to put a halt to their activities.

The adviser expressed hope that decisions taken by the cabinet would have its positive impact in near future.—PPI/APP