ISLAMABAD, September 27, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab passed two government bills and referred six bills to relevant committees after their introduction in the House, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the second sitting of 35th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and ten minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:38 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The deputy speaker was not present.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 22 MPAs (six percent) were present at the outset and 105 (28 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PRHP attended the proceedings.
• One out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House passed two government bills including the Stamp (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Punjab Privatization Board (Repeal) Bill, 2020.
• The House did not consider the Lahore Ring Road Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• Minister for law introduced six bills which were referred to the relevant committees for further consideration. These bills were the Punjab Board of Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2021; the Punjab Wildlife (Protection, Preservation, conservation and Management) (Amendment) Bill 2021;the Evacuee Property and Displaced Persons Laws (Repeal) (Amendment) Bill 2021; the Punjab Medical And Health Institution (Amendment) Bill 2021; the Lahore Institute of Science and Technology, Lahore Bill 2021 and the Punjab Finance (Amendment) Bill 2021.
• Minister for law laid the Punjab Commission for Regularization of Irregular Housing Schemes (Amendment) Ordinance 2021.

 Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House took up seven out of 48 starred questions. In addition, the lawmakers asked 13 supplementary questions.
• Minister for law responded to two calling attention notices regarding killings of three persons including father and his son in Narowal and dacoity incident in Kot Momin, Sargodha.
• Nine other CANs on the agenda were deferred on the request of movers.

Order and Institutionalization

• A PML-N lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 04:23 pm following which the Chair ordered the bells to be rung for five minutes and it was found complete upon counting.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Assembly’s website.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by SANGAT Development Foundation, a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted