NA panel asks PAL to play due role for promotion of national integrity, inter-provincial harmony

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage on Tuesday asked the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) to play its due role in promotion of national integrity, inter-provincial harmony and fight against extremism.

The committee, which met here with Chairperson Marvi Memon in the chair, reviewed the performance of Pakistan Academy of Letters and Department of Archeology and Museums.

Marvi Memon regretted said that the PAL was not serving the purpose for which it was established. She advised the PAL to switch over to e-books if it lacked funds for publication of new books. Marvi said that it was a fact that budgetary cuts were imposed on all government departments but the PAL should utilize available resources in more productive manner.

She said that the PAL should prepare plan for promotion of literature and make the country more literature friendly and for this purpose expertise of experts in the field should be utilized.

She also questioned whether any book was published by the academy on folk tales which would help promote national integration.

Talal Chaudhry said that there are several departments which do nothing except drawing salaries from the national exchequer. He said that PAL was meant to publish literary books but if there were no funds for this purpose the debarment should be merged with some other department.

Maryam Aurangzeb said that there seems to be lack of cooperation among various organisations working under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as she has never seen any report about PAL achievement on the PTV.

The committee asked the academy to publish books on all mother languages of the country in coming year.It also called for organizing national Mushairas to promote national integrity,inter-faith harmony and fighting extremism.

While taking up the agenda item on Department of Archeology and Museums the committee observed that 18th Amendment was very close to the hearts of th members of National Assembly and they will not support anything against the spirit of this amendment. However, it asked the Secretary IB&NH to seek legal opinion from law ministry on devolution of museums and archeological sites of national and international importance to provinces which the Archeological Department officials opine was against the 18th Amendment.

Secretary Information Muhammad Azam said that major museums and archeological sites should have remained with the centre but they were also devolved.About major archeological sites,he said that international community was interested in various sites but they were reluctant to deal with provincial governments.

He said that there should be analysis of the devolution of archeological sites t provinces.Moreover he said that a letter was written to provinces regarding UNESCO interest in various sites but they did not reply the letter.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Tahir Iqbal Chaudhry,Parveen Masood Bhatti,Marriyum Aurangzeb,Talal Chaudhry,Amir Ali Shah Jamot,Imran Zafar Leghari and Naeema Kishwar Khan.