Panel passes bill: PIMS one step closer to separation from varsity

Senate committee debates but defers bill on Islamabad Club

ISLAMABAD: Nearly four years after the demand was raised, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on Wednesday took a major step towards separating itself from its attached medical university.

The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, in its meeting on Wednesday, passed the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University Islamabad (Amendment) Bill 2017 to separate Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) from the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) in the capital.

The bill has already been passed by the lower house of  parliament and will now be presented on the floor of the Senate for voting.



The legislation was expedited after doctors, nurses and other staff at the hospital staged a three-week long strike earlier this year demanding the separation of the two institutions.

State Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, while briefing the panel, said that the university would be allocated separate land. For this purpose, he said that a letter had been written to the Capital Development Authority.

Explaining the need for the bill, Chaudhry said that many posts were lying vacant in Pims. Since these posts will be filled by officers from the Federal Public Service Commission, it was necessary to separate the hospital from the university.

Apart from Chaudhry, the CADD secretary and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman gave comprehensive briefings on the matter and answered questions of Senators.

After an extensive debate and counter assurances, the committee — headed by Senator Talha Mehmood — passed the bill unanimously and referred it to the house for consideration.

The bill is expected to be taken up in the upcoming Senate session.



Islamabad Club Bill

The committee also discussed at length the ‘Islamabad Club Administration and Management Bill 2017’, but ultimately decided to
defer it.

The bill had been proposed by Senator Azam Khan Swati who was of the view that the incumbent management of the club was run on an ad hoc basis by borrowing members from the Committee of the Management —a seven-member committee headed by the Administrator of the Islamabad Club.

Swati said that the management should be hired on regular basis under the cover of Law.

He also suggested that a proper procedure should be adopted under the law to audit the club.

The committee agreed to this suggestion in principle but suggested that the new board of governors of the club should be more on the lines of an elective body, elected by the members as is the case in other similar clubs.

After intensive deliberations, it was decided that the bill shall be taken up again in which the mover shall redraft the bill after consulting the other members and comparing the structure of other clubs.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2017.