Senate panel defers 'The National Highways Safety (Amendment) Bill, 2019'

Senate Standing Committee on Communication on Tuesday deferred a bill titled 'The National Highways Safety (Amendment) Bill, 2019' which is likely to be discussed in the presence of minister for communication and secretary communication in the next meeting of the committee.

Senator Bahramand Khan Tangi introduced the bill in the Senate on January 6, 2020 and it was referred to the standing committee for discussion. The mover of the bill argued that the bill is imperative for the future of children but the secretary communication is not present in the committee meeting. Senator Hidayatullah chaired the meeting of the committee.

The chairman committee asked the Communication Ministry to submit working papers in time in future so that members of the committee could go through them before the start of the committee meeting. He expressed serious concern over delay in submitting working papers by the ministries related to agenda items to be discussed in the meeting.

The committee discussed in detail the report submitted by a subcommittee on unhygienic condition of washrooms at Rashakai service area and selling of substandard food items on Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway service areas as compared to Islamabad-Lahore Motorway service areas. Issues of unmanageable traffic coming on M-I and M-II toll plazas and inconvenience being faced by travelers on Multan-Sukkur Motorway (M-5) due to non-operation of service areas and petrol pumps were also discussed.

The committee also looked into regularization issue of 58 consultants. Officials of Communication Ministry informed the committee that former Minister Syed Khurshid Shah decided to regularize 2,060 contract employees during Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government. However, the executive board declined to regularize 58 employees on the ground that consultants and contractors would not be regularized.