KARACHI: The Sindh government, which is executing 27 out of the 126 projects launched by the federal government in Sindh, has so far received Rs7.4 billion for them out of the total sanctioned amount of Rs27.3bn.

This emerged during the preparatory meeting summoned by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah at the CM House here on Thursday for the National Economic Council’s (NEC) upcoming meeting scheduled to be held in Islamabad on Monday.

The agenda of the NEC meeting, to be presided over by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, will be approving development schemes and their cost in addition to finalising the five-year economic plan from 2018 to 2023.

Meeting discusses proposals for next budget

Mr Shah said he would discuss the issue of lack of funding by the federal government with the premier and advise him to start work on Jamshoro-Sehwan dual carriageway at the earliest.

12-hour paediatric OPD

The chief minister was also given a presentation on child health in Sindh by the Child Life Foundation.

Mr Shah directed the health department to work out a plan for running OPDs in all government hospitals from 8am to 8pm.

The presentation indicated that 250 children under the age of five died every year. Around 21,000 children were brought to hospitals every day and 43 per cent of them belonged to poor families, facing different health issues.

“It is the responsibility of the government to provide health facility to every child,” the chief minister said.

Recalling that 6,000 doctors had recently been recruited to overcome shortage of doctors, he directed the health secretary to prepare a plan for establishing a well-equipped child health facility in every district headquarters.

“I would prefer to engage private sector so that quality health services could be ensured,” he said.

Next budget

Presiding over a meeting to discuss the financial budget for 2018-19, he gave directions to his team to control non-development expenditures and increase allocations for the social sector such as education, health and water schemes, and complete them on time.

The meeting was informed that during 2016-17 the provincial receipts, including SRB (GST on services), tax excluding GST etc, were Rs159.3bn and during 2017-18 the estimated amount is Rs199.627bn.

During the current financial year, 2,974 schemes, including 2,158 ongoing and 816 new are in progress against an amount of Rs244bn, including Rs39.884m revenue.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018