Budget debate remains stalled over minister, secy's absence.

LAHORE -- Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari kept Punjab Assembly proceedings suspended for 15 minutes on Friday over absence of both the finance minister and the finance secretary as the house resumed debate on budget for the second day here on Friday afternoon.

Mr Mazari got annoyed when the opposition pointed out the absence of the minister and the secretary during the debate on the budget. Instead of 15 minutes, the proceedings restarted after 40 minutes when Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht joined the debate.

The chair asked if the finance minister won't take the debate seriously, how one could expect this from the ordinary lawmakers and directed the minister and the departmental secretary to ensure their presence in the house throughout the budget session.

Muhammad Moavia Azam Tariq of the Pakistan Rah-e-Haq party (Jhang) began the budget debate and hoped making the budget interest-free from next year. He argued that the budget was (mostly) made of taxes from Halal (lawful) income of the citizens but the government would make it Haram (illegitimate) by including the revenue generated from interest and alcohol business.

With reference to the locust attack, he said that all were talking about spray of pesticides and raising awareness among the farmers against the pest but none was mentioning that payment of Ushr was another way to seek protection from natural disasters and demanded making Ushr system functional at the government level.

PML-N leader Sardar Awais Leghari recalled that Imran Khan had stated that Kashmir issue would be resolved if Modi won the polls. But, he regretted, the Modi government was going to complete its second year but the foreign minister never took up the India-held Kashmir issue with the Indian counterparts.

He said subsidy worth billions of rupees was given to sugar and flour mafias instead of diverting these funds directly to 5.2m farmers in the province.

Mr Leghari lamented that poor allocation was made for education infrastructure worth...