Pakistan to announce water policy on March 22

ISLAMABAD - The National Assembly was informed Wednesday that Water Policy would be launched on 22nd of this month, reported Radio Pakistan.

Minister for Water Resources Javed Ali Shah told the House during questions hour that it is for the first time in the country’s history that a water policy has been formulated covering all aspects including water conservation and storage. He said that a steering committee will oversee the implementation of water policy.

Javed Ali Shah said the groundbreaking of Munda Dam will be performed in Mohmand Agency next month. It will help generate 800 megawatts of electricity besides irrigating 16700 acres of land. He said funds are available for this project and efforts will be made to complete it at the earliest.

Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousuf told the House that transparency and fairness are being ensured in hajj balloting. He clarified that there is no hajj quota for the Prime Minister, the Ministers or the Parliamentarians.

The minister said that this year three hundred and seventy-five thousand people applied to perform Hajj under the government scheme. He said that given the arrangements put in place by the Ministry of Religious Affairs at the Holy Land and its economy package, the majority of people desire to perform Hajj under the government scheme. This, he said, is the reason that we have decided that 67 percent people will perform Hajj under government scheme while 33 percent under private Hajj operators. He, however, said that the private Hajj operators have moved the court against this decision. He assured the court’s decision on the matter will be implemented.

Minister of State for Maritime Affairs Jaffar Iqbal told the House that Gwadar port is in the development phase and it will become a profitable entity in the next two to three years. He said that modern machinery has been placed at the port to load and offload the goods from containers.
Minister for Defence Khurram Dastgir laid before the House “The Joint Maritime Information Organization Bill, 2018.

The minister said the bill is aimed at establishing an institution to consolidate all the information pertaining to maritime affairs. He said that relevant suggestions of the Parliamentarians will be incorporated in the bill.

Later, the chair referred the bill to the standing committee concerned. The House today passed two bills. These are “The Establishment of Federal Bank for Cooperatives and Regulation of Cooperative Banking (Repeal) Bill, 2017” and “The House Building Finance Corporation (Repeal) Bill, 2017”.
The bills were moved by Minister of State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan.

Responding to a call attention notice, Minister for Water Resources Javed Ali Shah said that water is being distributed among the provinces in accordance with Water Accord of 1991. He said the share of Sindh province was 19 thousand cusecs but it was given over nineteen thousand and one hundred cusecs.
He categorically made it clear that the government has no desire to shift the water share of one province to the other.

The House has now been adjourned to meet again today (Thursday) at 10:30 am.