All talk and no substance: Minorities' budget slashed, most schemes remain unfinished

Even the schemes carried forward from the fiscal year, 2012-13, have yet to be completed.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) claims to be the champion of rights for the marginalised communities. The budget announced yesterday, however, puts their tall claims into perspective.

With a 20% cut in the budgetary allocations and seven of last year's eight development schemes still unfinished, the PPP-led government has proved that their measures for minorities are nothing but lip-service. Sindh has the largest population of religious minorities in the country, for whose welfare the government has set aside just 0.33% of its total development budgetary allocations in the current fiscal year, 2014-15. The total allocations made in the current budget under the annual development programme for minorities are Rs567 million, which is around 21% less than the Rs720 million last year.

New schemes

Under the annual development programme, the government has proposed seven new schemes worth Rs143 million. These will cover the repair or renovation of Hindu temples in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Larkana, Khairpur and Ghotki. The rest of the capital, Rs424 million, is earmarked for six ongoing schemes. Meanwhile, there are no schemes for churches or the Jain mandir in Tharparkar.



Unfulfilled promises

A closer look at the document reveals that the provincial government managed to complete only one of the five schemes earmarked under the development programme in the fiscal year, 2012-13. These funds were meant for the repair, renovations, reconstructions and expansions of minorities' places of worship in the province. A small percentage of funds were released for two other schemes while the rest did not receive a single penny last year.

To add insult to injury, none of the three new schemes proposed last year could be completed as only Rs206 million of the Rs435 million was released.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2014.