Resolution passed to promote afforestation in K-P

Assembly also passes resolution seeking compensation for families of Harnai landslide victims

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday passed a resolution making it mandatory for both public and private schools in the province to promote afforestation.

Amina Sardar of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) tabled the resolution, which stated that the government should make sure that both public and private schools promote afforestation and ensure plantation in their institutions.

The house unanimously passed the resolution as both the opposition and treasury benches were in favour of it.The house also adopted two more resolutions tabled by the opposition members.



Sahibzada Sanaullah of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) tabled a resolution demanding of the Centre to ask the provincial government of Balochistan to compensate the families of eight mine-workers killed last week in a landslide at a coal mine in the Harnai district of Balochistan. The house passed it unanimously like the previous one.

The house also passed a third resolution presented by Munawar Khan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl seeking the K-P government to regularise the services of Class-4 employees working in the offices of District Development Advisory Committees chairmen.

Taking up the agenda of the day, Law Minister Imtiaz Qureshi introduced the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission (Amendment) Bill 2017 which sought extension in the service of commission members from the existing three years to four years.

In the question hour, K-P Finance Minister Muzaffar Said admitted that his department had fixed quite a high tax collection target for the previous year’s budget, which was why the departments could not achieve it.

Said was answering a question of PPP lawmaker Sardar Fakhr Azam. In a written reply, Said stated Rs49.5 billion was the estimated target of provincial receipts for the year 2016-17. It was revised to Rs32.4 billion and the total recovery was Rs27.3 billion. The department further stated that the current year’s target was Rs45.2 billion.

Azam gave a tough time to the finance minister asking him to explain how much domestic loan the K-P government obtained in the previous fiscal year to meet its budgetary requirements.



The K-P finance department submitted a written reply to the assembly that the K-P government had not taken domestic loan although it had included Rs10 billion in the previous budget.

“The loan was not borrowed as the government did not feel the need to borrow it,” Said told the house. Lawmaker Anisa Zeb and Azam asked Said to explain why the government had not felt the need to borrow it even though it was included it in its budget.

Said could not answer the queries and the question was referred to the committee of the house concerning the matter.