April 18, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 29, 1428

QUETTA, April 17: The Balochistan Minister for Finance Syed Ehsan Shah has said the government adopted two-fold strategy to implement the estimated Rs10.82 billion public sector development projects, besides obtaining loans from Asian Development Bank on soft terms in order to repay the loans taken on high interest.

Speaking at a press conference here on Tuesday the minister said that the financial discipline of the provincial government was aimed to increase the resources and to benefit from the limited revenue of the province.

He disclosed that Balochistan would be the first province to pay off the cash development loans taken at rate of 18 per cent. Against this the soft term loans obtained from the ADB would save Rs1 billion annually. The finance minister said that during the last two years Rs10 billion loans were paid and now the province owed only Rs3.5 billion loan. He said that the overdraft of the State Bank on July 1, 2004 was Rs10.3 billion that had increased to Rs17.26 billion in July 2006.

He claimed that the loan strategy would change the Rs9.3bn overdraft into soft-term loan.

Ehsan Shah said Balochistan would get Rs33.8 billion from the federal government as its share in the federal resources. Similarly, the provincial government received Rs572.7 million from the Centre under the head of Bolan Medical College as the latter had deducted from the provincial account although the federal government had initially decided to bear the cost of construction of the college.

He said the education, health and communication sectors were on priority of the government to provide people the basic facilities.