The third sitting of 23rd session of Punjab Assembly started under the chairmanship of Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan on Wednesday after the delay of more than an hour.
According to the agenda of the day, questions related to the agriculture, information and dairy development departments were asked in the house. Agriculture Minister Dr Farrukh Javed, Food Minister Bilal Yasin and Parliamentary Secretary for Information and Culture Rana Muhammad Arshad answered the questions asked by the provincial lawmakers of Punjab hailing from both treasury and opposition benches.
“There are 12 institutions working under the provincial Information and Culture Department and the budget of their employees is around Rs 1.45 billion annually”, Parliamentary Secretary for Information and Culture Rana Muhammad Arshad replied to a question asked by a lawmaker Amjad Ali Javed.
These institutions include Lahore Arts Council, Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture, Punjab Council of the Arts, Lahore Museum, Bahawalpur Museum, Lyallpur Museum, Islamic Arts Institute, Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab, Nazriya-e-Pakistan, Bab-e-Pakistan Foundation, Punjab Films Censor Board and Directorate General Public Relations (DGPR), he added.
A verbal brawl erupted between the parliamentary secretary and a member of treasury benches Mian Tahir when the latter asked a supplementary question and the parliamentary secretary gave a wrong answer. Upon it, leader of the opposition Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed also criticised the secretary and asked him to resign.
“The parliamentary secretary does not even know the issues related to his department and therefore he has no right to sit in his office”, the opposition leader said.
As many as five ordinances were laid down in the House while two bills were also introduced during the government business. The provincial law minister laid the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Ordinance 2016 (XIV of 2016), the Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Authority (Amendment) Ordinance 2016, the Punjab Restriction on Employment of Children Ordinance 2016, the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Ordinance 2016 (XVI of 2016) and the Punjab Local Government (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2016 before the House.
According to the Punjab Restriction on Employment of Children Ordinance 2016, the employer may face a fine up to Rs 50,000 and 6 months imprisonment in the case of non-compliance. The ordinance further says that a ‘Provincial Committee on Child Labour’ will be constituted to advise the government for appropriate legislation in order to eradicate the child labour from the province. “The employer shall allow an adolescent employed in the establishment a holiday of at least one whole day in a week. The employer shall specify the holiday through a notice permanently displayed at a conspicuous place in the establishment and the employer shall not alter the day of holiday more than once in three months”, the ordinance further says.
Moreover, the Infrastructure Development Authority of The Punjab (Amendment) Bill 2016, the Parks and Horticulture Authority (Amendment) Bill 2016, the University of Home Economics Lahore Bill 2016 and the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016 were also introduced in the house.
According to Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), as many as six out of 10 starred questions were responded to on floor of the House while two others were disposed of due to the absence of movers. The lawmakers also asked 14 supplementary questions.
The House deferred an adjournment motion regarding attack on a police station by former Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) lawmaker Hanif Abbasi.
The chair directed the government to submit report on the commercial use of residential property in area adjacent to Forman Christian College University, Lahore. The matter was raised by a PML-N lawmaker during Zero Hour.
The House referred a privilege motion of PML-N lawmaker to the relevant committee.
The lawmakers spoke on 11 Points of Order consuming 17 minutes of the proceedings. An Independent lawmaker pointed out quorum twice at 12:20 hours and 13:30 hours. The quorum was found incomplete on both occasions; however, it was completed on first instance after the bells were rung for five minutes.
Fifteen minutes of the proceedings were consumed in headcounts and ringing of the bells.
The session was adjourned till 10AM Thursday (today).