QUETTA: Taking part in a debate on the provincial budget for the next fiscal year on Monday, opposition and treasury benches in the Balochistan Assembly stressed the need for improving service delivery in education and health sectors.

They urged the government to take stern action against absentee teachers and doctors posted in far-flung areas of the province. They deplored that such teachers and doctors regularly received salaries but avoided performing their duties.

Speaker Jan Mohammad Jamali presided over the session.

Opposition member of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl), Shahida Rauf said the coalition government had prepared the budget without having any data about the population of the province.

“No population census has been conducted in the country over the past 16 years. The provincial and federal governments have made budgets on the basis of estimates,” she deplored.

Criticising the budget, she said the issue of massive unemployment in the province could not be resolved by creating just a few thousand jobs.

Despite tall claims being made by the provincial government, she said, hospitals and rural health centres in the interior of the province were in a pathetic condition.

She lamented that no funds had been allocated for establishing women’s hostels in Quetta and other towns.

But Raheela Hameed Durrani of the Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) said huge funds had been allocated for vital sectors in what she called the people-friendly budget.

Yet, she called upon the government to pay attention to problems being faced by women and farmers and to education, health and energy sectors.

She deplored that despite passage of several years, the master plan of Quetta could not have been prepared and called for restoration of the city’s past glory.

Pakistan Muslim League- Quaid MPA Abdul Kareem Nusherwani praised the budget but also raised the issue of the plight of government schools, particularly the menace of absentee teachers.

“Similar situation can be seen in hospitals where doctors and other staff are not performing their duties,” he said.

He asked the government to create more jobs to overcome shortage of doctors and teachers.

JUI-F member Sardar Gul Mohammad Dummar praised the government for earmarking more funds for the education sector but said reforms were needed to improve the education standard.

“Thousands of students study in the open in building-less schools,” he said and urged the government to construct school-buildings.

He underlined the need for taking steps to bound teachers and doctors to attend their duties.

He said that pharmaceutical companies were supplying fake medicines to government and private hospitals but `corrupt’ drug inspectors had turned a blind eye to the practice in return for hefty bribes.

Health Minister Rehmat Saleh Baloch said that no repair and renovation of schools was carried out over the past 15 years and no medicine and equipment were provided to hospitals over the past seven years. “It is the incumbent government that has provided missing facilities to schools and medicines and medical machinery to hospitals.”

He said the government was trying to bound doctors to attend their duties and post gynecologists in every district of the province.

He said that over 200 new posts of doctors would be created in the upcoming fiscal.

Minister for Planning and Development Dr Hamid Khan Achakzai said the government had allocated adequate funds for development projects.

Earlier, he said, medicines were not available at the Civil Hospital Quetta and other hospitals of the province but the incumbent government had earmarked sizeable funds for procuring medicines and equipments for the hospitals.

Nasrullah Khan Zeray and Liaquat Agha of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and Mufti Gulab Khan of the JUI-F also spoke on the occasion.

Later, the session was adjourned till Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2014