RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The unanimous budgetary recommendations made by Senate to National Assembly also included the proposals of PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar to allocate Rs 10 billion for FATA reforms project and another Rs 1 billion for strengthening National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR).

Another proposal, also made by the PPPP Senator, called for setting up a Victims’ Support Fund initially with seed money of Rs 20 billion for the rehabilitation of families of victims in the fight against militancy.

He also proposed a minimum of 20% raise in pay and pensions of government employees.

Yet another proposal of Senator Farhatullah Babar endorsed by the Senate says: “In compliance with the May 28, 2015 decision at the All Parties Conference to build the western route of the CPEC on priority basis, the Senate recommends to the National Assembly that the specifications of the western route of CPEC should thus be upgraded and brought at par with specifications of the eastern route and to correspondingly raise the allocations for the western route in the budget 2017-18.”

Talking to the media, he said that while the government had announced FATA reforms package, it did not make any allocation in the budget for the implementation of the reforms. “It is inconceivable to even begin implementing the reforms without budgetary allocation,” he added.

Likewise, he said the NCHR was an autonomous body created under the law to check human rights violations by state and non-state actors.

The NCHR Act provided for the setting up of a Fund under the control of the Commission, he said. However, the government not only failed to set up the Fund but it also allocated Rs 250 million to a parallel human rights institute under the executive effectively subverting the independent Human Rights Commission.

Babar said that tens of thousands of personnel of armed forces and civilian law enforcing agencies and ordinary citizens have been martyred in the fight against militancy. The defence forces had devised elaborate plans for honouring the martyrs and for looking after their families.

However, there was no corresponding package for the civilian law enforcing agencies and other victims of war on terror. There is need for a Special Victims’ Support Fund, he said.