June 20, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 04, 1428

Quetta, June 19: Balochistan Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah will present the province budget for 2007-08 in the assembly on June 21.

Sources said that the size of the budget would be around Rs70 billion, which would also include capital receipts and state trading.

The provincial receipts were estimated at around Rs44 billion. Sources in the provincial finance department told Dawn that for the

Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), 2007-08 around Rs13 billion have been allocated that would be around 40 per cent more than the PSDP of 2006-07.

The provincial government has decided to provide maximum funds for the completion of ongoing development schemes and in view of this decision only two new development schemes would be included in the next year’s PSDP. "We want to implement the unfinished development schemes," sources said.

They said that though the budget for 2007-08 would be a deficit budget, the provincial government had decided not to impose any new tax.

However, measures would be adopted for increasing provincial resources in the next financial year to provide maximum funds for the annual development plan.

Sources said that with batter financial management and efforts the provincial government succeeded in bridging the deficit shown in the 2006-07 budget. Current expenditures - that were indicated around Rs37 billion - were reduced up to Rs34 billion and thus Rs3 billion were saved.

The government also provided Rs2.8 billion from the provincial resources that were increased from Rs1.3 billion during last three years.

"Balochistan took a lead in all the four provinces in increasing its resources without imposing new taxes," sources said. They expressed the hope that in the next financial year provincial resources would be further increased as it would get more income from new Chamalang coal mines and some other under developing mineral projects.

Balochistan also received an extra amount of around Rs4 billion from the Centre on account of outstanding dues of gas development surcharge and other sectors.

Through arranging these extra resources the Balochistan government provided maximum funds for the ongoing PSDP that was estimated at Rs7.4 billion and it was increased up to Rs9.4 billion on receiving more resources.

Another significant achievement of the Balochistan government was that it had not obtained a single penny overdraft from the State Bank of Pakistan during 2006-07 and provided all funds from its own resources for implementing the PSDP. It has also succeeded in payment of cash development loans on which it had been paying around Rs250 million interest monthly. Sources said that soft loans obtained from the Asian Development Bank were used for repayment of these costly loans that were badly affecting the provincial economy.