Planning ahead: Sindh govt may present budget worth Rs185b

KARACHI:

The Sindh government has announced to present the provincial budget for the upcoming year on June 17 and it is expected that it will be worth Rs185 billion, which will be a jump from last year’s budget worth Rs161 billion.

Despite the fact the major chunk of the budget has not been utilised, the Sindh government is insisting on allocating more funds. Till Wednesday, the provincial government had hardly utilised Rs75 billion of the total development outlay, said a government official. More than Rs86 billion have yet to be released for initial development schemes and projects.

The total outlay of development budget for education was estimated at Rs12 billion last year, but only Rs5 billion has been released so far, he said. Meanwhile, the government has proposed Rs11 billion for health and a major chunk - Rs50 billion - has been allocated for law and order. Meanwhile, nine billion rupees each would be allocated for transportation and agriculture sectors. This will include tractors schemes for peasants.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2013.