16 May 2004	Sunday	25 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

QUETTA: Akbar Baloch is a Grade-17 officer in a government department. Living in a three-bedroom house in a government colony along with his four children and wife. He is drawing around Rs13,000 a month salary. His children are studying in private schools.

"I admitted my elder son in a government school eight year ago. Despite studying two years in the government school, he was not able to even read Urdu Qaeda properly. This forced me to send my son to a private school," Akbar says, adding that he pays Rs4,500 for their tuition fee and rented van.

Akbar Baloch spends around Rs4,000 on gas, electricity, water, telephone bills and the remaining amount goes to food and other monthly expenditures. "There remains no money to spend on health and other social services. I always pray to God for good health of my family."

The government has given health cover to the government employees, but it is very difficult for a Grade-17 officer to get free medicines from the government hospital according to the doctor's prescription. In this situation law-paid employees and officers have no option but to visit private doctors for batter treatment.

The Balochistan government allocates millions of rupees in the annual budget for providing social services - education, health and social welfare. The government was giving top priority to these sectors to provide maximum facilities to the people of the province.

According to officials at the provincial government, the Balochistan government had allocated 18.5 per cent of its total budget for the promotion of the education sector that included 19 per cent for non-development and 18 per cent for development side. According to the education development programme, many new schools and collages were being opened in the province, while a large number of schools were upgraded during the current financial year.

The other important sector is health. In the current financial year, the Balochistan government has provided six per cent of the total budget for the health sector to set up more hospitals, basic health centres, providing medicines and other facilities to the people. The public health sector was another important sector of the social services for which the government has allocated nine per cent of its total budget. Under this sector, the government was implementing a large number of public health sector projects.

"We are spending around 33 per cent of our budget to provide social services to the people which is according to the international standard," a senior officer of the planing and development department told Dawn.

Thought the government is paying its full attention to the health sector for providing maximum healthcare facilities to the people, yet it needs more attention and funds to cover whole of the province. At Present the government is providing only Rs22.50 per person annually for the healthcare. The government is opening new hospitals, basic and rural health centres and upgrading the existing tehsil hospitals into district headquarters hospitals, spending huge funds for purchasing medicines for the hospitals.

The MNA and PMA development programme badly affected the health sector. Under the programme, members of the parliament and MPAs constructed hospitals and BHUs and RHUs buildings in their constituencies without any planning and requirements. They are not ready to spend their funds for upgrading existing health facilities for political reason.