19 June 2004	Saturday	30 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, June 18: The NWFP government has allocated Rs3,564 million for fresh development schemes, identified in the Annual Development Programme for 2004-05.

The government has allocated a total of Rs16.195 billion for the next ADP, which included Rs6,980 million for the ongoing schemes initiated during the last year.

A separate amount of Rs3,684 million has been earmarked exclusively for the fresh social sector's schemes, which, according to him, was 22.8 per cent of the total outlay of the ADP.

Presenting, what he called a tax-free and surplus budget, in the NWFP assembly on Friday, finance minister Sirajul Haq thanked Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali for enhancing net hydel profit's annual share from Rs6 billion to Rs8 billion. He said the additional Rs2 billion would be spent on the development of the province.

The minister told the House that more funds would be pumped into the ongoing schemes to get them completed in time. "There are some financial constraints, but development schemes put on the priority list will be completed first," he added.

The minister said that Rs726 million had been allocated for the Tamir Sarhad Programme, in which all the MPAs would be given a fair share like the previous year. The government would provide all the MPAs with equal funding under this programme, he assured the House.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government, he said, had focused on the female education in this budget. The girl students would be provided free books up to matric from this year, he told the House.

To enhance literacy rate, he said, the government had decided to establish 20,000 adult literacy centres across the province. The government would seek help of graduates in its efforts to get maximum people enrolled at these centres, he said.

The minister said that the government would construct 198 new primary schools, 12 girls colleges and five boy colleges besides upgradation of 198 primary schools to the middle level.

The government would provide furniture to 375 schools besides providing basic facilities to another 500 schools. He said 169 computer laboratories would be set up at high schools.

The minister, however, did not mention the construction of a single high school in the province. He said government would construct three new polytechnic colleges and four vocational institutes at different districts.

In health sector, Mr Haq said that 12 basic health centres would be given the status of rural health centres, 8 RHU would be upgraded to the level of D-class hospitals and three civil hospitals would be converted into the C-grade hospitals. He said Rs31 million would be spent on the 22 schemes to rehabilitate beggars in the province.

He said the government would also construct museums at Hund in Swabi and at Charsadda, besides the renovation of Chitral and Chakdara museums for the attraction of tourists. The government had allocated Rs22 million for the renovation of worship places of the minorities.

He said about 1,450 km roads mostly under-constructed would be completed across the province and Rs90 million would be spent on the extension of many a roads and construction of fly-overs in Peshawar.

In irrigation sector, tube-wells would be installed, widening of canals and construction of embankments would be carried out on priority basis. Bazi Irrigation scheme would be completed with a cost of Rs1,600m, he added.

He said Rs135 million had been allocated for 27 schemes that included 100 water tanks, construction of 100 water channels, 45 drip-sprinklers, plantation of tea saplings on 45 acres, levelling of 10,000 acre lands and establishment of 10 vet dispensaries.

The minister mainly focused on completion of ongoing projects which are based on the chief minister's directives and many of them were dropped on the advice of World Bank last year. But this year the government had included all of them and didn't initiate a fresh big project.