LAHORE - Budget debate continued at Punjab Assembly on Saturday with legislators from across the political divide resorting to usual point-scoring instead of giving proper input on proposed allocations.

Opposition members accused the government of making lives of the masses miserable by adopting faulty and wrong policies. Treasury legislators praised the government for putting the economy back on track and giving the best budget under prevailing circumstances. 

The session started one hour and 15 minutes behind the scheduled time with Panel of Chairman Mian Shafi Muhammad in the chair. 

PML-N’s Ramesh Singh Arora criticised the government for ‘failure to make bylaws of the landmark Sikh Marriage Act’ passed by the House four years back. Pakistan was the first country on the globe to introduce legislation for the registration of Sikh marriages.

Arora lamented that government also failed to make bylaws of Hindu and Christian Marriage Acts. He accused the government of not giving due rights to the religious minorities.

PML-N’s Khalil Tahir Sindhu demanded making maiden speech of Quaid-e- Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the Legislative Assembly part of the curriculum. He said that development budget was useless if allocation was not properly utilized. He, along with Arora and Tariq Gill, staged a walkout for not giving proper time to give input on the budget. They, however, returned on the request of Minister for Social Welfare Syed Yawar Abbas Bokhari. 

PPP’s Ali Haider Gilani assures unconditional support to PTI govt for making S Punjab a separate province

PPP’s Syed Ali Haider Gilani assured unconditional support to the PTI government for making South Punjab a separate province. He said that 40 million people of South Punjab wanted separate province and not secretariat.

“PPP will support creation of province in National Assembly, Senate and the Punjab Assembly”, he said. He said that economic policies of the PTI regime were failure. Government had deprived people of 165 constituencies of development funds in three years, he said. 

PTI cabinet member Syed Yawar Abbas Bukhari said that the government had presented development and relief-laden budget. He said that development allocations has been increased by hefty 66 per cent to Rs560 billion from last year’s Rs337 billion. He said that social sector and infrastructure development was 63 per cent of the Annual Development Plan 2021-22. The government has allocated funds for other parts under Punjab Growth Strategy, he said. The government has increased the budget allocation of every department by 65 %. The government will upgrade 1200 schools in one year. The government wanted to establish university in every district of the province, the minister said. 

PTI’s Ammar Siddique, Neelam Hayat, Muhammad Nadeem Qureshi and Mazhar Wasif said that affects of the budget will reach to the common man. “We need clean water not metro busses. What the PML-N had not done decades, PTI had done in three years”, they claimed. 

The session was adjourned till Monday afternoon.