KARACHI: Better law and order situation and greater emphasis on social sector with more stress on health and education schemes would be the hallmark for the Sindh government in the next nine months of the current fiscal year, said Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in his budget speech in the house on Monday.

“Maintaining law and order is on top of my priorities. Provision of better health facilities and improved educational profile of Sindh are motto of our government among several other targets we have set for ourselves,” he told the Sindh Assembly.

“We have restored peace to Sindh’s capital and elsewhere, now we have to sustain it and we will make necessary investment in human resource and physical assets to achieve this objective,” he said, conceding, the street crime had increased in the past couple of months and “we are making effo­rts to eliminate it”.

He said the budgetary allocation for the home department for 2018-19 was Rs102.483 billion out of which Rs2bn had been allocated on development side.

The CM concedes 48pc of Sindh’s children suffering from malnutrition, stunting

Among other measures taken during his last tenure, over 10,000 policemen were recruited on merit, the house was told.

Mr Shah said during 2018-19 his government’s main focus would be on strengthening police by improving infrastructure specially police stations/lines for which Rs640m had been kept.

An amount of Rs80m had been allocated for strengthening investigation branch through purchase of GSM locators and modern investigation kits. An allocation of Rs750m had been kept for purchase of bulletproof jackets, helmets and arms and ammunition. “For reshaping police on modern lines and IT initiatives, we have allocated Rs250m.”

Education and health

The non-development budget of education has been increased from Rs178.7bn to Rs211bn.

On development side, Rs24.4bn is allocated compared to Rs17.1bn during the last fiscal year.

To improve the quality of education, the CM said in his budget speech, the Sindh government had taken initiative for ‘rehabilitation and expansion of high priority 4,560 schools’ having higher enrolment for carrying out major and minor repair work and provision of missing facilities like boundary wall, washrooms, drinking water, furniture and construction of additional classrooms.

“This will provide additional space for over 550,000 additional students. During 2018-19, 2632 primary/ elementary and high schools having all essential facilities will be brought into the system which have been carefully selected on merit in all 29 districts of Sindh.”

Allocation for health sector this fiscal is Rs102.224bn on non-development side and Rs12.5bn on development side.

The chief minister said his focus would be on provision of missing facilities in hospitals, especially at the taluka and district level.

The National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD) had become world’s largest centre for angioplasties in the public sector and was now providing expensive life saving devices free of cost to poor patients.

The provincial government was also providing a grant of Rs5.6bn to the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) to sustain its services in Karachi and for new initiatives in other cities.

Malnutrition and stunting, conceded the chief minister, had posed challenge for his government as 48 per cent of Sindh’s children suffered from them.

He said a multi-sectoral programme had been launched for which an allocation Rs4.27bn had been made in this fiscal year.

He spoke at length over clean drinking water and sanitation, energy, and Thar Coal.

He said the proof of worth of Thar coal would be demonstrated in December when “the first electrons will flow from the first 330mW Thar Coal-based power plant of Engro Power Gen Thar Ltd into the National Grid”.

Mr Shah also spoke about the Peoples Poverty Reduction Programme (PPRP).

Besides, he said due to untimely and insufficient rains, a drought like condition persisted in various districts including Tharparkar, Umerkot, Sanghar, Kambar Shahdadkot and Dadu.

The government had carried out a survey and would provide free wheat for three months to deserving households.

He also spelled out his government’s plans for women development, people’s belonging to minority faiths etc.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018