ISLAMABAD, June 17: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) MNA Naheed Khan has criticized the huge budgetary allocation for the ministry of information and broadcasting and demanded that the ministry should be abolished.

Talking to a group of reporters here on Friday, the PPP MNA said she had also raised the demand of abolishing the ministry on the floor of the National Assembly while speaking on cut motions during the debate on the federal budget.

Ms Khan questioned the allocation of about Rs2 billion for the ministry and suggested that the amount should rather be spent on poverty alleviation. The PPP leader said the budget for the Press Information Department (PID) had been increased from Rs113 million to Rs140 million despite the fact that its only job was to carry out the ‘publicity’ of ministers and advisers.

Similarly, she said Rs160 billion had been earmarked in the budget for press attaches working in Pakistani embassies abroad. She said there was no need for making this allocation keeping in view the performance of these attaches in the past few years. She said despite spending huge money on press attaches, they had failed to improve the country’s image abroad. She said though the government talked much about enlightened moderation, Pakistan was still considered a country where extremists were living in majority. Ms Khan further said there was no respect for the Pakistani passport in other countries.

She said out of Rs1.186 billion budget of the information ministry, Rs1.5 billion had been put on the sole discretion of the information minister.