Opposition in PA stages walkout as debate on budget begins.

KARACHI -- The debate on the provincial budget for the next financial year began in the Sindh Assembly on Saturday with the treasury benches terming it the `best` during the coronavirus pandemic and the opposition criticising the Sindh government for `corruption and poor governance`.

Preceding the discussion, ruling Pakistan Peoples Party`s lawmaker Dr Sohrab Sarki said that his party presented a peoplefriendly budget despite facing an unprecedented situation.

He said that the salaries of the provincial government employees were raised by 10 per cent in the budget. `We have allocated around Rs50 billion for Covid-19-related relief package,` he added.

Mr Sarki said that Sindh was developed more than any other province after devolution of powers under the 18th Amendment.

`Biasness` towards urban areas Opposition member Rashid Khilji of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan rejected the provincial budget saying it was based on `biasness` of the PPP towards urban areas of the province.

He said that the provincial government had failed to complete several schemes on time and added that no one knew when these schemes would see the light of day.

The Muttahida MPA from Hyderabad said that the scheme of establishing an industrial zone in Larkana was conceived several years ago and there was no sign of its completion in the near future.

Similarly, the water supply scheme for Sehwan and other local government projects in Hyderabad were not completed so far, he added.

`Hyderabad is the second largest city of the province and itfaces multiple civic and municipal issues including water shortage, collapsed sewerage system and dilapidated roads,` he lamented.

During his speech on the budget, the MQM-P member drew the attention of Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani towards the empty benches of treasury and said only one minister and a few government members were present in the house.

Opposition stages token walkout Leader of the Opposition Firdous Shamim Naqvi rose to ask how many ministers were present in the house and said that they should have attended the session through video link.

The opposition leader announced that they were staging a token walkout until the ministers attended the proceedings, though the speaker told him that the secretaries of the ministers were present in the house.

The visibly irked speaker said that this behaviour of the opposition members was not acceptable and he would be left with no option but to conduct the virtualsession if such...