Education & health in K-P, Punjab budgets

Major difference between the two provinces is in the field of public health or the water supply and sanitation sector


Dr Pervez Tahir June 16, 2016
The writer is a senior political economist based in Islamabad

The PTI government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has been claiming since its installation in power in that province that human development is its top priority. The party’s leadership has been critical of the PML-N government in Punjab for pursuing mega projects in physical infrastructure at the expense of human development. Budgets are an instrument to judge whether money is being put where the mouth is. Of course, allocating adequate amount of money is only the first step in service delivery. The trouble is that Pakistan has been found wanting in taking even this first step for a long time. Hence the continuing emphasis on achieving some key expenditure to GDP ratios in the development discourse. In the social sectors, non-development expenditure is as important as the development expenditure. While development expenditure is aimed to reduce the sectoral deficit of facilities, the non-development expenditure is necessary to sustain the facilities already created.

Human development is mainly about education, health, water and sanitation. A comparison of the just announced budgets of the Punjab and K-P governments reveals an interesting result. In the Punjab budget for 2016-17, the total allocation for education, health and water supply and sanitation is Rs168.87 billion, or 31 per cent of the development programme. The corresponding figure for K-P is 25.2 per cent. The lead in Punjab is the result of massive increases of 47 per cent in education, 62 per cent in health and 88 per cent in the provision of clean water.

Sector-wise allocations show mixed results. Take the case of education first. For 2016-17, the K-P budget allocates a total of Rs125 billion for non-development as well as development expenditures. This comes to 24.8 per cent of the total budget. Out of this, Rs21.7 billion is for development. The amount works out as 13.5 per cent of the development budget. In the development budget for education, the share of elementary and secondary education is 78 per cent. In Punjab, the total allocation for education is Rs256 billion or 15.2 per cent of the total budget. It includes the allocation for development budget of Rs73.3 billion. The development budget of education is 13.3 per cent of the total development budget. In the development budget for education, the share of elementary and secondary education is 65.2 per cent. While the share of education in the development budgets in the two provinces is about the same, K-P spends relatively more on primary and secondary education and in terms of non-development budgets.

In the health sector, K-P has allocated Rs55.9 billion or 11.1 per cent of the total budget. Of this, an amount of Rs17.47 billion is earmarked as development expenditure. It comes to 10.9 per cent of the total development expenditure. Punjab’s non-development allocation for health is Rs70.1 billion. An amount of Rs42.5 billion has been allocated for the development expenditure. Its share in the overall development expenditure is 7.7 per cent. The primary and secondary health care component in Punjab constitutes 42.4 per cent of the total allocation for health. This component in K-P is 60.6 per cent.

The major difference between the two provinces is in the field of public health or the water supply and sanitation sector. It gets Rs11.5 billion in the development budget or 6.9 per cent of the total development budget in K-P. In Punjab, the allocation for water supply and sanitation is Rs45 billion, which is 8.2 per cent of the total development budget. At the end of the day, what matters is the quality of expenditure. For instance, Punjab scores better in terms of the provision of basic facilities in schools.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2016.

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COMMENTS (4)

The Ravian | 7 years ago | Reply This statistical analysis favours KPK rather than Punjab.
Ali | 7 years ago | Reply I live in Punjab and bigges problem is the police which is corrupt to the core. Governance is very poor as MNA/MPAs run their constituencies as feudal fiefs.
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