KARACHI   -   The proceedings of the Sindh Assembly turned ugly on Thursday as the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Mukesh Kumar Chawla lost his cool and came down hard on opposition lawmakers for hurling ‘threats’ on the chair and delivering prolong budget speeches.

Javed Hanif of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Grand Democratic Alliance’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi during their speeches warned the chair that they would not let any other member to speak, if not allowed to complete their speeches. The remarks of opposition lawmakers irked Chawla who even aggressively moved towards Muhammad Hussain of MQM-P when was backing his party colleague. However, persuading members from both sides calmed down the minister.

Earlier speaking on the budget, Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh said low-cost electricity generated from Thar would cater the need the country. He said that 660 megawatts electricity is currently being generated from Thar Coal, adding that 1320 megawatts would also be generated in future.

Criticising the federal government for what he called billions of rupees on power generation through oil, Shaikh said that fair amount of electricity could be generated from Thar coal and that too on low cost. He said that the centre had discriminatory attitude towards Sindh, adding that neither Prime Minister Imran Khan nor his any cabinet member congratulated Sindh government after inauguration of power generation from Thar Coal.

Nusrat Sehar Abbasi of GDA criticised Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah for presenting budget in English instead of Urdu or Sindhi. She was of the view that the budget was nothing except ‘collection of huge figures’, adding that despite the PPP’s 11-year term and expenditures of trillion rupees, there was not even a single modern union council across the province. She added that HIV and other diseases were spreading and the people were deprived of water.

During her speech which lasted over half an hour, the chair turned her microphone off but later she was allowed to complete her speech after intervention of Opposition Leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister.

Separately, the MQM-P Javed Hanif said education and health sectors of the province had been destroyed, adding that children dying in Thar on regular basis. He went on to say that the PPP government deliberately neglected Karachi and other urban areas. “Karachi contributes 92 per cent to Sindh economy but it gets nothing in return. The provincial government proposed Rs 48 billion new taxes and all of them would be collected only from Karachi.” he added.

The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan MPA Sarwat Fatima said that Child Protection Agency had failed to control child abuse cases in the province, urging the need of allocating budget to overcome this issue as well.

Arsalan Taj of the PTI said that the provincial government always decried cut of funds by the centre but did not bother to perform its responsibility.