QUETTA, June 20: A Rs2.65 billion cut on Balochistan’s development programme in the outgoing fiscal year did not prevent Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah on Friday to announce an even more ambitious uplift outlay of Rs9.3 billion for the next year.

In his budget speech, Ehsan Shah spoke of the problems the government had to face as expenditures had gone out of control in the current fiscal. He said Rs1.40 billion was set aside for interest payment on the federal government’s loans. “We did not get any concession in debt servicing and this amount escalated to Rs2.92 billion,” he complained.

The government paid Rs1.50 billion to Wapda on tubewell operations and another Rs1.61 billion was paid to the ministry of food and agriculture. A host of factors, he said, caused revenue expenditure to touch Rs23.4 billion from Rs19.75 billion estimated earlier.

On the other hand, the minister said, the revenue income came down by more than Rs2 billion and added that the most convenient way of balancing the budget was to cut down the development funds from Rs8.51 billion to Rs5.86 billion.

For the next fiscal the minister showed Rs535.8 million in surplus revenue after making adjustments of revenue income and capital income with expenditures. This surplus money is one of the sources that will finance the development programme in 2003-04.

All other sources put forward to be adding to the ADP appear to be assumptive. There are, therefore, reasons to believe that the development programme for the next fiscal year will also be cut down. In fact, there does not seem to be enough money to meet the rising demands of 26 district governments in the province.

The minister announced the setting up of a 10,000-strong Balochistan Constabulary. An amount of Rs1.36 billion was allocated to education in the next ADP. The government, he said, would spend an additional amount in all 26 districts in this important sector and added that “education up to matric will be free in Balochistan to facilitate the children of the poor”.

He said the provincial government was taking many steps for developing and reforming the health sector and added that new posts of doctors and other cadres were being created in the Chaman and Mastung basic health units.

He said it had also been decided that new posts of professors, associate professors, assistant professors and their helpers would be created in the Bolan Medical Collage during the next fiscal year.

In the agriculture sector, the minister said, the government would grant bulldozers’ hours to growers for levelling farmlands and added that trickle and sprinkling system of irrigation would soon be introduced in the province. The government, he said, was ensuring the availability of fine quality wheat seeds for a better crop.

A survey of government agriculture lands was being conducted to distribute land among landless peasants, he said and added that a policy would soon be evolved in this regard.

In the communications sector, Rs3.102 billion was allocated which would be spent on 113 ongoing projects and 140 new schemes. Many roads, including farm-to-market and village-linking roads, would be built in different areas.

The minister said the second phase of farm-to-market roads project would be executed with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank. During the current financial year, he said, Rs3.502 had been allocated for 192 road projects, including 102 ongoing and 90 new ones. Fifty-four such projects were completed during the current fiscal, he added.

Referring to the long dry spell in the province, the minister said the government had allocated Rs1.47 billion for 58 ongoing and 73 new water resources development schemes.

He announced that 10 water supply projects would be completed in Quetta, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Mastung, Chagai and Kharan districts, while 23 delay action dams would also be constructed in other parts of the province. He said the federal government had provided Rs1,304 million for emergent drought programme and added that work was in progress for installation of 3,000 agriculture tubewells and rehabilitation of 588 dried-up karezs in the province.

The minister said the government had allocated Rs50 million for providing small loans to peasants, and grant for the welfare of journalists had been increased from Rs100,000 to Rs1 million.