QUETTA: The Balochis­tan government has decided to impose health and education emergency in the province and bring maximum entities in tax net through widening the working of the Balochistan Revenue Autho­rity to increase provincial financial resources for reducing deficit of the current budget.

These decisions were made in the maiden meeting of the six-party alliance coalition’s cabinet here on Tuesday, which lasted for several hours with Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani in the Chair.

The newly inducted minister, Zahoor Ahmed Buledi, announced the decisions after the cabinet meeting. He said that the cabinet reviewed law and order situation and development process in the province and took various decisions for improvement in performance of different departments.

He said that the cabinet decided to approach the federal government to seek special grant to enable the provincial government to overcome the budget deficit of the current year.

Provincial cabinet decides to ask Centre for special grant

“Balochistan is facing deficit of Rs62 billion amid a severe financial crisis,” the minister said.

It was further decided that the federal government would be approached for “removing the hurdles in getting Balochistan’s share in the federal resources”.

He said that the cabinet resolved to continue recruitment on non-teaching vacancies and to induct teachers in the education department on contract bases “with the name of educator”.

“Recruitment will be made on around 10,000 vacant posts of teaching and non-teaching staff in the education department,” he said.

According to the minister, it was also decided in the meeting that vacant posts of the Balochistan Public Service Commission will be filled soon.

The cabinet also approved in principle allocation of Rs1bn for providing drinking water and building washrooms in 10,000 schools across the province as thousands of schools, including those of girls, are lacking the facilities.

Minister Buledi said that the cabinet also approved the setting up of permanent teachers’ management committees in all schools in the province to ensure that teachers and students regularly attend the institutes.

“The cabinet has declared that establishing boys’ and girls’ schools in every union council of the province is mandatory,” he sad and added that it also decided to provide funds required to complete under-construction residential and cadet colleges in the province.

“Subject specialists will be appointed in all colleges of Balochistan,” the minister said with a feeling of pride in his tone.

Discussing health affairs, the minister said, the cabinet decided to take strict action against absentee doctors who were not performing duty on the places of their appointment. It was decided that an apex committee headed by the chief minister would be set up in the health department to make decisions about devolution of powers in the department up to lower level.

The cabinet also approved requirement of doctors on contract bases for primary health care.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2018