QUETTA, June 19: Provincial Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah will present the annual budget for the fiscal year 2006-07 in the Balochistan Assembly on Tuesday. Sources said that the budget outlay would be around Rs47 billion, including the annual development programme (ADP) of around Rs10 billion.
The size of the annual development programme for the year 2006-07 would be around 20 per cent less than the previous year’s ADP. The province was facing a burden of Rs16 billion over draft.
The sources said that the government had decided not to include new development schemes in the 2006-07 ADP and maximum funds would be allocated for completing the ongoing projects.
The government would announce some steps for increasing provincial receipts as the federal government had asked provincial finance managers to take steps for generating more resources at the provincial level. Balochistan had already increased provincial resources up to Rs2.3 billion during the current financial year and for 2006-07 fiscal year the target would be around Rs3 billion.
However, new vacancies would be created in government departments to control unemployment.
The sources said that Islamabad had been requested to postpone recovery of loans as presently the province was paying over Rs500 million as interest on the loans extended by the federal government to the provincial government.
