Punjab PA asks govt to ensure payment to cane growers

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly Tuesday unanimously demanded the government to take immediate measures to force sugar mill owners to ensure that payment to cane growers, which they have been withholding for over a year.The demand was made by a resolution tabled by the opposition’s Muhammad Safdar Shakir on a private members day and was almost unanimously passed despite that Food Minister Samiullah Chaudhry had opposed it. But a treasury member, PTI MPA Ch Akhter Ali, rose to support it, saying the government should support the resolution as farmers were facing serious problems due to nonpayment by millers for years. However, the food minister said that almost 99pc of the blocked payments had already made by sugar mills to farmers. He said the government had served notices on sugar mill owners who had not paid the price of sugarcane to farmers. He assured the House that the government would ensure in future that sugar mills not only clear the outstanding payments but also make all payments promptly.The House kept pending a resolution by PML-N MPA Khalil Tahir Sindhu against the taking over and changing the name of the historic Edwards College Peshawar by the KP government. He said neither the KP government nor any other authority could take over church property under the law. Law Minister Raja Basharat opposed the resolution saying that it was against the parliamentary norms and ethics that any provincial assembly passed a resolution against the decision of another provincial government. He said KP Information Minister Shaukat Yousufzai had denied the government had taken control of the college.PTI MPA Shahida Ahmed was made to withdraw her resolution demanding that senior citizens of 65 years and more should be exempted from paying fare in public transport after Transport Minister Jahanzeb Khicchi opposed it saying that senior citizens were already exempted from paying the fare by Lahore Transport Company. He informed the chair the government was not in a position to exempt senior citizens from paying fares in metro buses and connecting buses because the government was already paying a huge amount on subsidy.The House deferred two resolutions by PML-N MPA Hina Pervez Butt, one demanding that public and private hospitals should be directed not to charge ambulance charges for sending dead bodies homes of patients who died during treatment. Law Minister Raja Basharat said all public hospitals where social welfare bodies were functioning were providing free ambulance services.The other petition regarding restricting private educational institutions from charging exorbitant fee from students and fleecing them for allied requirements like books, stationery and uniforms, increasing the number of slaughterhouses and take strict action against the sale of unhygienic meat were deferred.

from The News International - National https://ift.tt/2Omer1U