IPC minister asked to seek joint session on census

Senate committee summons officials on water sharing among provinces

ISLAMABAD:

A Senate standing committee on Wednesday asked Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Minister Dr Fehmida Mirza to request the National Assembly speaker to convene a joint sitting of parliament on the reservations expressed by the Sindh chief minister on the census-2017 results.

The Senate Standing Committee on Inter-Provincial Coordination met at the Parliament House with its chairman Senator Mian Raza Rabbani in the chair. The meeting was attended by its members, besides Dr Mirza and the IPC secretary.

Regarding the letter written by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to Prime Minister Imran Khan asking for referring the CCI’s decision, taken by a majority vote, on the census of 2017, the committee was informed by the IPC secretary that the matter was to be dealt with in a joint sitting of parliament.

The Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its meeting in April approved the census results but also decided to conduct a fresh population count later this year. However, the Sindh chief minister, in a letter to the prime minister, expressed the province’s reservations over the census figures.

The Senate committee was informed that the matter pertained to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) and the IPC ministry had “no role in it”. Dr Mirza told the panel that “only one letter had been written to us on this issue which was just for information”.

The committee chair, while addressing the IPC minister, said that she should write to the National Assembly speaker to convene the joint sitting of parliament on the matter. However, the minister replied that she could not write or force the speaker but could only play her role in this regard.

Regarding decisions taken by the CCI Secretariat, concerning the provinces from 2008 to date, the IPC secretary said that the CCI secretariat’s work was transferred to the IPC Division from the Cabinet Division in March 2010.

Since then, 36 meetings of the CCI had been held, he said, adding that the annual reports of the decisions of the CCI from 2010 to 2020 had been presented in parliament. The secretary also said that so far 29 meetings have been chaired by minister, in which important issues were resolved.

The committee chairman asked whether the chief ministers attend those meetings. The IPC minister replied that they had been part of the meetings in the past, but “now no one attends the meetings” despite the ministry writes to them. The committee sought detailed briefing on the matter.

While discussing the issue of water sharing among the provinces, Senator Rabbani summoned the representatives of Balochistan and Sindh, chairman and members of Indus River System Authority (IRSA), and the Secretary Water and Power to hear their point of view on the issue in the next meeting.

During the meeting, Dr Mirza and the IPC secretary also briefed the committee on the performance and the issues facing the ministry. Mirza informed the committee that the process of re-structuring the ministry was under way.

“Our ministry does not have a human resource department, until and unless there is no such department, the performance of the ministry will not get better,” she said. “If someone is fired, they go to court,” she added.

The committee also decided to receive a comprehensive briefing on the issues of the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Pakistan Football Federation in the next meeting. When asked about the chess situation, the secretary said that the situation of chess was similar to that of football, which is an unresolved issue.

Mirza underlined that we do have problems related to the sports federations. “By making effective relevant policies not only we can engage our youth but sports in the country can also be revived,” she said.

The meeting was attended by senators Zarqa Suhrawardy Taimoor, Gurdeep Singh, Muhammad Ayub, Saeed Hashmi, Mirza Muhammad Afridi, Mushtaq Ahmed, Jam Mehtab Dahar, Rana Maqbool Ahmed, and Dr Sikandar Mandhro.