ISLAMABAD, February 12, 2012: The Sindh Assembly, which met for four hours and 27 minutes in the sixth sitting of the 40th session on Tuesday, passed a bill to reconfirm the official spellings of the province’s name as Sindh besides and also adopted five resolutions.
According to the Statement of the Sindh Laws (Amendment) Bill 2012, “the 18th Amendment of the Constitution corrected the name of the Province of Sindh from ‘Sind’ as the British Empire spelled it to ‘Sindh’ to reflect more accurately the actual pronunciation of the word by the people of the Province. This Act shall bring all legal documents issued in the Province into conformity with the constitutional Amendment.”
The House adopted five resolutions sponsored by private members. The resolutions were on issuance of tickets to passengers in public transport buses, efforts to improve female literacy in Sindh, taking initiatives on maternal and child healthcare, installation of a mammography machine in every district civil hospital of Sindh, and taking measures to control deadly viral diseases.
The Sindh Control of Goondas (Amendment) Bill 2012 was referred to the Standing Committee. Meanwhile the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Sindh) Bill 2013 was deferred till the next sitting.
The Deputy Speaker chaired the sitting. The Chief Minister was not present.
Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:
Members’ Participation in House Proceedings
- The Sindh Assembly met for four hours and 27 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1101 hours against the scheduled starting time of 1000 hours, witnessing the delay of an hour and one minute.
- The Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
- The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, NPP, PMLQ (F-B) and ANP were present whereas those of PMLF and PMLQ were absent.
- Only 14 members were present at the start while 52 were there at the time of adjournment. A maximum of 62 members were present at one point of sitting.
- Five minority members were present.
Representation and Responsiveness
- All 11 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up and responded to by the relevant minister. Additionally, 37 supplementary questions were asked.
- An adjournment motion about the outbreak of measles in Sindh was raised and discussed by two members for four minutes.
Output
- The Sindh Laws (Amendment) Bill 2012 – one of the three bills on the agenda – was unanimously passed by the House.
- The Sindh Control of Goondas (Amendment) Bill 2012 was introduced and referred to the Standing Committee.
- The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Sindh) Bill 2013 was deferred till the next sitting.
- The House unanimously adopted five private members’ resolutions appearing on the agenda. These were regarding issuance of tickets to passengers in public transport buses, efforts to improve female literacy in Sindh, taking initiatives regarding maternal and child healthcare, installation of a mammography machine in every district civil hospital of Sindh, and the measures to control deadly viral diseases.
Order and Institutionalization
- Five points of order consumed 13 minutes of the sitting time.
- No instance of walkout, protest or boycott was observed during the sitting.
Transparency
- Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and others.
The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN