Schools summer vacation shifted to July-August due to Ramazan: Sindh Assembly informed

The government has announced annual summer vacations for academic institutions in the province for July and August session only for the next three years because of Ramazan-ul-Mubarak, Sindh Education Minister Mazhar-ul-Haq told Sindh Assembly on Wednesday.
Besides, the Sindh Education Department has asked the private schools managements to charge fee of two months of vacations and not three months, the minister said in reply to questions by Humera Alwani. About the change in annual summer vacations from June and July to July and August, he said that the parents and school staff had wanted the government to facilitate them during the Ramazan Mubarak falling in August this year and the next two years respectively. He said that the government would revert to annual vacations later on.
With Speaker Nisar Khohro in the chair, two government bills were introduced in the house. The first was The Sindh Protection of Human Rights Bill and the other The Sindh Tourist Guide Bill, 2011. The house also carried a number of extensions during the proceedings.
The Sindh government has approved Rs 200 million for re-boring, rehabilitation and installation of new tube-wells in the province, Irrigation Minister Saifullah Khan Dharejo told the house during question hour. He said that Irrigation Department has purchased 13 new transformers from the funds allocated for maintenance and repair work during 2007 and 2009. He added the department had also got 10 transformers repaired during 2009 and 2010, besides renovating the workshop facility.
He said that about 71 percent tube-wells in the province are operational out of 742 which Wapda had installed and subsequently transferred to Irrigation and Power Department in 1991. The minister added that about 19 percent of tube-wells were closed because of some major or permanent faults, including bore failure or transformer disorder, whereas 10 percent of tube-wells were dysfunctional for minor faults across the province.
He said the funds released from the Sindh Finance Department were insufficient to carry out the maintenance and repair work of the already functional tube-wells. He said the department had sent a request to the government to allocate funds in line with the 1995 yardstick to make the closed tube wells functional.
Dharejo said the department had taken a number of steps to make the idle tube-wells operational, adding that the government had purchased 25 new transformers from funds allocated for maintenance and repair work during 2007 and 2009. He said no hand-pumps had been installed by NGOs near River Indus.
The minister said the design for discharge of water from old Nara Canal downstream Makhi was 3900 cusec, but now it hardly carried a maximum discharge of 1600 cusec water, and at present 1200 cusec water was running there. Dharejo said 3,000 cusecs water could be released in old Nara Canal to supply water to Thar Canal because the former canal had lacked the capacity to discharge 3,000 cusecs water due to the silt problems.