Budget priority: ‘Government focusing on health, education’

26.25 per cent development funds are for education sector, says Rehman.

LAHORE:

Minister for Finance, Excise and Taxation Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman said on Monday that the government was focusing on the health and education sectors.

Talking to various delegations, the minister said the government had allocated additional funds for both the sectors this year. “The government has allocated 26.25 per cent of the development funds for the education sector and 11.6 per cent for the health sector,” Rehman said.

He said the provincial government was going to spend Rs121 billion on providing healthcare facilities to the people. The minister said a health insurance scheme would be started in the province at the cost of Rs4 billion.

Referring to the issue of children’s vaccination, the finance minister said the government-run immunisation campaign covered nine diseases. “Children are our future.

The government is committed to providing them the best healthcare facilities,” Rehman said. He said all children below the ages of five were provided the vaccination shots free of cost at all government hospitals.

“More than 0.7 million children are disabled in the country ever year because they are not covered by immunisation programmes,” the minister said. He said Rs1.8 billion had been allocated for various mother and child nutrition programmes.

He said the government had also allocated Rs600 million for providing free dialysis treatment to kidney patients.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2014.