LAHORE: Opposition on Tuesday wall(ed out of the house for not giving enough time to its member to speak about the budget.
PML-Q`s Khateja Umer pointed out that the PML-N government had promised to break the begging bowl in 2008 but today Punjab owed a debt of Rs553bn to institutions.
`If the loan for Orange Line Train and Qaud-i-Azam Solar Park is included this figure rises to Rs900bn. During the tenure of Chaudhry Pervaiz Ealhi the province had a surplus budget of Rs100bn.
This government`s major failure is bad governance,` she said.
On this women legislators of PML-N started interrupting her. She said whenshe talked about the good works of Pervalz Elahi`s tenure the treasury got upset. The speaker told Ms Umer that she could not be given more time.
Consequently, the opposition boycotted the session. However, it returned to the house on the insistence of some treasury members.
Jamaat-i-Islami`s Wasim Akhtar said funds allocated for 1,070 development projects of the south Punjab had been diverted to the Orange Line Project. `We are not against the development of Lahore but we can`t accept it (train project) at this cost.
He said the federal and provincial governments should review the interestbased system as it was un-Islamic. He also spoke about construction of Kalabagh Dam to end the energy crisis.
Sheikh Allauddin of PML-N said the government should earmarl< funds for transgenders in 2016-17 budget. They could be assigned collection of tax. He proposed that all business activities should end at 7pm.
Ramash Singh Arora drew the attention of the chair to non-allocation of funds for the upkeep of Sikh `Gurdwaras.
PML-N`s Imran Zafar proposed that in every district headquarters hospital a children`s ward and a state-ofthe-art laboratory should be established. Dr Alia Aftab said the number of special persons had risen to 5.3m and its growth rate was 2.5 per cent which was quite high and the government should take measures to control this.
Shanila Ruth said the budget for minorities should be increased. She said the government failed to utilise 50pc of 2015-16 budget.
