A mere association with ‘special people’ makes some regions ‘special’. Multan, the constituency of our incumbent prime minister, got the lion’s share in development funds earmarked for the entire south Punjab region.
It was disclosed in a meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas on Tuesday that 85 per cent of development funds, meant for southern Punjab, were spent in Multan alone.
The committee called it discrimination on the part of Premier Yousaf Raza Gilani and said that “this has deepened the sense of deprivation among the people of other districts (in south Punjab).”
The committee, which met at the local circuit house for a second day in a row, called for making amends for this injustice. Senator Dr Abdul Malik presided the meeting which was attended by senators Muhammad Ali Durrani, Nilofar Bakhtiar and Dr Khalid Soomro besides senior bureaucrats.
Cabinet division officials informed the meeting that last year, Rs1.456billion was spent in Multan district under the People’s Works Programme. The share of other southern Punjab districts was: Bahawalpur (Rs192million), Bahawalnagar (Rs190million), Rahimyar Khan (Rs43million), Vehari (Rs342million), Khanewal (Rs490million), Lodhran (Rs318 million), Dera Ghazi Khan (Rs149 million) and Rajanpur (Rs296 million).
The committee strongly objected to the glaring difference in the figures and said that this discrimination would create a sense of alienation among the people of other provinces.
“The prime minister has done an injustice to other southern Punjab districts. And the committee will convey its reservations to the government,” said Senator Malik.
The meeting also finalised recommendations for the region’s development which include declaration of Bahawalpur as a tax-free zone, establishment of an engineering university, a modern abattoir and a milk collection centre, declaration of Drawar Fort as an international heritage and construction of a Lodhran-Khanewal expressway.
The meeting participants supported a popular demand for the restoration of Bahawalpur’s provincial status in an effort to trigger fast-paced development in the neglected region.
The meeting was informed that a modern slaughterhouse was being built in Multan. But Senator Durrani strongly objected to this saying that since the biggest cattle market in the region is located in Bahawalpur, building the abattoir in Multan is sheer injustice to the people of Bahawalpur.
Senator Soomro supported Durrani’s viewpoint. “Wisdom demands that not only the slaughterhouse but also a milk collection centre should be set up in Bahawalpur,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 11th, 2012.
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Here we go.
This is what i have been saying. Takht lahore, takht multan, takht peshawar, takht karachi.
Dont take hatered and narrrow mindness to this level.
Millions died when Punjab was divided in 1947. Creation of New Provinces will destroy Pakistan, or whatever is left of it. Gillani and this government has done exactly that through actions like these and in most cases naked violence, like Karachi.
@More Provinces: Good one. Multan would be the natural capital of a Seraiki province but it seems that Multan has alienated the rest of the Seraiki belt. Maybe Multan should be a separate province apart from the rest of the Seraiki province!
So now we would need a Southern South Punjab province too :)