KARACHI: The Sindh government plans to slash its development budget by Rs20 billion — from the current financial year’s Rs185 billion to Rs165 billion for 2014-15 — but promises a higher rise in salary and pension than all other provinces and the federal government, says minister for parliamentary affairs Dr Sikander Mandhro.

Dr Mandhro told journalists at the Sindh Assembly on Saturday after a briefing by adviser to the chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and the finance secretary to the members of the finance committee and chairmen of standing committees.

He said that the total outlay of the new budget would be decided after announcement of the federal budget. “However, we have asked the finance department to make the new year’s budget realistic by estimating expenditures keeping in view the resources,” he said.

But according to sources the new budget’s total outlay could be around Rs600 billion due to resource constraints against Rs617 billion outlay of the outgoing financial year of 2013-14 budget.

The new budget, likely to be announced on June 13 by Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, would have 80 per cent allocation for ongoing schemes and 20 per cent for the new schemes, said Dr Mandhro.

Answering questions, he said that there was a proposal to give 15 to 20 per cent increase in salary and pensions. It would be finalised after the raise had been given by the federal government and other provinces but the increase would, however, be more than the provinces and the federal government, he claimed.

He said the Sindh government was already facing a shortfall of Rs65 billion in its share in the federal divisible pool in current financial year as the federal government had pointed out decrease in recovery of taxes. In spite of that the provincial government had released funds from its own resources to complete ongoing schemes by June, he said.

In reply to another question he said the government could not hold non-developmental expenditures as salaries and pensions had to be paid. But, he said, as compared to other provinces, the Sindh government had spent more on certain schemes by up to 70 per cent and its average utilisation of funds was around 34 per cent while in other provinces up to 27 per cent funds had been utilised.

Asked about the fate of mega development projects like Karachi water supply scheme K-4 and sewerage project S-3, Lyari Expressway and Thar coal project after they were dropped from the PSDP, the minister said these projects were the province’s assets on which enough investment had already been made.

The government would continue to work on them from its own resources and keep on drawing attention of federal government to its commitment with regard to these projects dropping of which would create a sense of deprivation among people of Sindh, he said.

During the briefing, he said, the lawmakers gave suggestions for resolving problem of water and traffic of Karachi. The lawmakers from other districts also suggested schemes to facilitate people which would also be included in the ADP, he said.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2014