imageISLAMABAD: Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada Wednesday said Council of Common Interests (CCI) would meet on February 29 and all issues including national census and power generation policy 2015 were on its agenda.

He was responding to a point of order raised by Syed Khursheed Shah and Calling Attention notice moved by Naeema Kishwar Khan and others regarding non-inclusion of the problems of Sindh and Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa and matter pertaining to census and economic corridor in the agenda of ensuing meeting of CCI.

The minister said the CCI had already cleared the national census in its last meeting, adding that census and all other issues were on its agenda.

He assured the house that no province would be deprived of its due rights. No province had any objection on the census, he added.

Praising the Chief Minister Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah and particularly former Chief Minister Balochistan Dr. Abdul Malik for their roles to hold the national census, the minister said all credit goes to Dr. Malik for showing his consent despite poor law and order situation in at least 10 districts of the province one year ago.

The minister narrated various steps taken for conducting the nation census.

The finance ministry has released Rs 5.27 billion out of total Rs. 14.5 billion allocated for the census.

He said materials related to the census had already been procured besides training of the staff.

Pirzada said Prime Minister, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif always decided all such issues in CCI after evolving consensus.

He said the opposition had majority in Senate and the upper house had equal representation of all provinces.

He said no one could curtail the power of the provinces. Later the House was adjourned to meet again on Thursday at 10.30 am.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2016

Comments

Comments are closed.