The upgraded project, valued at Rs3 billion, will also furnish the university with a new double storey compound. PHOTO: FILE
Amid much uproar over its nomenclature, the National Assembly (NA) on Thursday passed the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University Islamabad Bill.
The bill aims to upgrade the country’s biggest medical facility, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), into Islamabad’s first ever public medical university. It also transfers the Faculty of Medicine at the Quaid-i-Azam University to the newly founded institute. The upgraded project, valued at Rs3 billion, will also furnish the university with a new double storey compound.
According to the bill, the newly founded institute will be christened after the Pakistan Peoples Party founder – a point of immense contention for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The leading opposition party finally lost its patience with the ruling party’s practice of naming major projects after either ZA Bhutto or Benazir during Thursday’s NA session. It was not alone in its protest, however, as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement joined it in sloganeering against the university’s nomenclature.
PML-N had perhaps planned its protest well ahead Thursday’s proceedings as the moment deputy speaker Faisal Karim Kundi asked Minister for Capital Administration and Development Nazar Muhammad Gondal to move the bill, angry lawmakers from the party began distributing Quaid-e-Azam’s portraits among their colleagues while chanting slogans against the legislation.
Despite its protest, however, had the opposition intended to block the bill, it could have done so through its numerical strength. Yet, a large number of opposition lawmakers, including opposition leader in the house Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, were absent from the scene – this too despite Nisar’s earlier statements to oppose the bill at ‘all costs’. And while the deputy speaker asked PML-N’s legal wizard Zahid Hamid several times if the former’s party had any concerns during a clause-by-clause reading of the bill, the latter did not speak.
After asking the opposition for any reservations against the bill a final time upon finishing the reading, the deputy speaker sought the lawmakers’ votes for and against the legislation. The bill was passed shortly after.
Meanwhile, the deputy speaker started clause by clause reading of the bill [taking sense of the house over every single clause]. Later, Law Minister Farooq H. Naek and Sheikh Waqas held an informal discussion with Zahid Hamid but to no avail.
After some 10 minutes of clause by clause reading and before final approval of the bill, Kundi again announced “any member who wants to speak about the bill can speak now.” When no one expressed the desire speak, the deputy speaker sought sense of the house over the bill and finally the bill was passed.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2013.
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Another upgrade like PIA !!!!