Urgent legislation has been passed by Punjab Assembly for the establishment of the Ravi Urban Development Authority, a brainchild of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The Punjab cabinet had approved the ordinance for the project through circulation of the summary. Law Minister Raja Basharat presented the bill in the House on an urgent basis, upon which the rules were suspended in the assembly session and it was approved.
During the first week of the recent session of Punjab Assembly, record legislation was carried out and eight bills were approved. The government bills were passed due to lack of interest and absence of opposition members. The Punjab Assembly has so far passed 58 bills in two years. Leader of the House Usman Buzdar and Leader of the Opposition Hamza Shahbaz did not attend the session or participate in the process of legislation. The opposition leader could come to the assembly on production orders.
Four key ministers, Abdul Aleem Khan, Mian Mahmood Al-Rasheed, Mohsin Leghari and Hasnain Bahadur Dareshk, did not sign the circulated summary, reportedly due to concerns over the approval of the Ravi Urban Development Authority ordinance.
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The opposition protested the suspension of the rules for approving the bill and walked out of the House. Meanwhile, the bill was passed in five minutes. PML-N’s senior MPA Samiullah Khan said that under the Punjab Assembly Rules of Procedure, no bill can be put on the agenda for three days after the report of a committee is tabled in the assembly.
The Ravi Urban Development Authority will be an independent body and its board will make all decisions by a two-thirds majority.
The project has been separated from the provincial Housing Department and the Lahore Development Authority. The new authority will work under the provincial Services and General Administration Department.
The Provincial Department of Housing and Urban Development and the LDA have failed to achieve their targets for the New Pakistan Housing Project in two years and work could not start on a single site in Punjab. With the approval of the bill for the establishment of the authority, the Ravi Urban Development Agency set up under the LDA to implement the project has been dissolved. The chief minister was made the patron of the authority in the ordinance. However, in the bill passed by the Punjab Assembly, the role of the chief minister as a patron has been removed.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 27th, 2020.
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