Punjab govt amends Land Division Rules 2010

In an apparent move to facilitate the private housing scheme owners, the Punjab government has announced to give the facility of allocating two per cent of total land instead of five per cent for public buildings like parks, mosques, schools and hospitals and keeping the width of inside roads of housing schemes 30 feet instead of 40 feet in private housing schemes.
Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has given approval to the amendment in the Punjab Private Housing Schemes and Land Division Rules 2010, on the recommendations of special committee headed by Secretary Local Government and Community Development Department Punjab Khizar Hayat Gondal set up in this regard.
However, the government believes that it was going to benefit the labourers since these housing schemes were not being completed because of certain curbs since it was obligatory for private housing schemes in Punjab to allocate five to ten per cent of total land for public buildings like parks, mosques, schools and hospitals. Similarly, it was binding upon every private housing scheme that there should be not less than 40 feet width of inside roads of the scheme.
It has been asserted by the government that due to these strict conditions, the development work of private housing schemes had become stand still. Resultantly, not only skilled persons, shopkeepers supplying building material and the labourers were being affected but the common people despite the depositing amounts for the plots were running from pillar to post for getting the possession of the plots.
The CM took immediate notice of it and directed the Chief Secretary to evolve a strategy for relaxation in the rules, after that a special committee headed by Secretary LG& CD Department Khizar Hayat Gondal was constituted. Secretary Housing, Secretary Law, Commissioner Gujranwala Division, Project Director Urban Unit, Director General Rawalpindi Development Authority, DCO Lahore and Tehsil Municipal Officer Ferozewala Agha Humayun were members of the Committee.
The CM has given approval to the amendment in the Punjab Private Housing Schemes and Land Division Rules 2010 on the recommendations of Chairman Special Committee Khizar Hayat Gondal, according to which, the minimum limit for allocating land for public buildings in private housing schemes has been reduced from 5 per cent to 2 per cent whereas the width of the roads inside the housing schemes has been reduced from 40 feet to 30 feet.
Khizar Hayat Gondal mentioned that as a result of this facility being provided by the Punjab government to private housing schemes, there will be lot of opportunities of flourishing the housing sector in private sector and not only the development works would be accelerated but the skilled persons, labourers and the business of the persons supplying material will be promoted. He further told that the allotees facing problems despite depositing amount to private housing schemes, would be able to get developed plots soon. He said the number of housing units in Punjab is already very low and it would help solve residential problems.

BISP’s beneficiary families to be 7 million in August

Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme Farzana Raja has said the number of beneficiary families registered with the BISP will rise up to 7 million in the next month, while 96 per cent of the nationwide poverty survey has already been completed and till now more than 5.4 million families have been enrolled with the programme.
She was addressing the cheques distributing ceremony at the Governor’s House Lahore under the Waseela-e-Haq Scheme of the BISP. Cheques were distributed among 263 women belonging to various districts of the Punjab. The PPP provincial leadership, parliamentarians, workers and the cheque-recipient females were also present. Federal Minister Samina Khalid Ghurki, Makhdoom Shahab-ud-Din, Imtiaz Safdar Warriach, Altaf Qureshi, Sami Ullah Khan, Shaukat Mahmood Basra, Tanvir Ashraf Kaira and Sajida Mir were prominent.
Farzana Raja also mentioned that the PPP was a movement of giving the rights of the people at their doorsteps and the BISP was successfully advancing this mission. She lauded the efforts and vision of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for advancing the mission of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. She said Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had sacrificed her life to serve the people of Pakistan and to protect their rights. “Hence,” she said, “we will not allow anybody to create hurdles between the poor people of Pakistan and the BISP which is established to serve them. We will achieve the mission of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto of making Pakistan a welfare state,” she added.
The Chairperson BISP further said all the families registered with the BISP were being included in the balloting under Waseela-e-Haq. Besides this, she said, every registered family was being covered by life insurance of Rs One lac and a member from each registered family would be imparted with vocational/technical training under Waseela-e-Rozgar initiative. She mentioned that some elements were busy in spreading baseless rumours and allegations against the BISP. “However, these facts are befitting responses that till now, more than Rs 88 billion have been distributed among the poor of the country by BISP and only Rs 25 billion have been distributed among the families recommended by the parliamentarians belonging to PPP. Likewise, more than Rs 13 billion has been distributed on the recommendations of the parliamentarians belonging to the party of Mian Nawaz Sharif,” she said, while announcing on the occasion that during coming September and October, one million children of the beneficiary families of the BISP would be sent to school. She further added that on the directions of the president and the prime minister of Pakistan, measures were being taken to dole out all the financial assistance among the beneficiary families through Benazir Smart Card instead of post offices.
Governor Punjab Sardar Latif Ahmed Khosa said the BISP had been declared as a most transparent programme in the social sector by the various prestigious institutions of the world. He added that the BISP had introduced state of the art technology to serve and facilitate the poor of the country and had proved that Pakistan was not a backward country. He concluded that the present democratic government would complete its term of five years and would keep serving the people of Pakistan.

Debate on Afghan Transit Trade avoided at Assembly

On the last day of the 19th session on Friday, the Punjab Assembly could not discuss the Afghan Transit Trade route primarily because the Speaker did not let the members do so despite latter’s pleadings.
Secondly, Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah Khan did not come to the House due to which even the government business could not be carried out. Seeing this, Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal let everybody speak on Point of Order till the House had exhausted its stipulated time till 12:30pm. Resultantly, the commitment made by the Law Minister for debating the trade route could not be done as well.
While referring to his Adjournment Motion, Opposition’s Muhammad Mohsin Khan Leghari made numerous futile pleadings to urge the Speaker for allowing debate on the Afghan Transit Trade route as per the commitment of Rana Sana that the debate would be held on Friday. MPAs Tahir Ali Javed, Mian Muhammad Rafique and Amna Ulfat also endorsed Leghari, who even went to the extent of requesting the Speaker to continue the day’s proceedings after the Friday prayers, but the Chair did not consider it. “You come to me later, and we will both debate over it,” said the Speaker to quieten Leghari.
Emotionally charged PML-Q’s defector Sheikh Ala-ud-Din also asked the Speaker to initiate debate. “I can say on oath that the agreement has been signed. We cannot give concessions to India, which has brought Pakistan to this stage,” he added.
However, when Finance Minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira rebutted Leghari by saying that his Adjournment Motion was to be considered next week, quite a few members rejected Minister’s assertion, which left him stranded sans any support. Nonetheless, he apprised the House that the federal government had not signed any such agreement yet, but only inked a 'record note'. He also mentioned that proceedings of the meeting were confidential and could not be made public.
Later, Leader of the Opposition Ch Zaheer-ud-Din demanded of the government for raising salaries of 1122 Emergency Service staff, and traffic wardens. He criticised the provincial government for indulging in discrimination against two important departments of the public service. “The present government must not pin-down Rescue-1122 and traffic wardens because these were established by Ch Pervaiz Elahi (former Chief Minister Punjab),” he said adding that the Transparency International had also declared the new traffic police free of corruption. “But unfortunately, they are being neglected in salaries’ increase. When the pays of the police were raised, traffic wardens were neglected on the pretext they were not part of the Punjab establishment,” he observed.
While responding to this, Tanvir Ashraf Kaira told the House that the government was already considering the matter of immense importance, and assured his colleagues that the House would be informed soon about any policy decision.
Later, on a Point Of Order, Major (r) Abdur Rehman Rana observed that the future of Pakistani engineering and medicine students – who had recently come back from Kyrgyzstan following riots there – was uncertain because they had not been able to complete their studies, while their parents had already spent huge amounts of money. “About 250 students belonged to Punjab and some of them had to appear for examinations of first and final year. Now the government must make arrangements for their examinations after contacting the Kyrgyzstan embassy,” he demanded.
The Speaker admitted that it was a genuine grievance and directed the Education Department to address the issue. However, Minister for Special Education Malik Muhammad Iqbal Channer failed to satisfy the ex-armyman, and the rest of the House since whatever he mumbled, remained unto him.
At this point, Sheikh Alauddin tried to score point when he asserted that he had already raised the issue on the floor regarding the study programmes being offered by Chinese and Kyrgyz institutions, and one could see advertisement banner for admission on different roads of the city.