PESHAWAR, June 22: The NWFP government has formulated a welfare-oriented and poor-friendly budget despite the province’s meagre resources, according to Finance Minister Shah Raz Khan.

Winding up the budget debate in the provincial assembly, the finance minister said the MMA government had allocated sizeable funds for education and health sectors. He said they had made a 794 per cent increase in the education sector alone and provided free books to students up to the matriculation level last year.

This year, he said, the government planned to provide free books up to the intermediate level. He said that besides setting up hundreds of primary, middle and high schools, the MMA government had established 80 colleges in the past four years.

He said they had set up an electricity cell soon after coming to power, resulting in an annual saving of Rs1 billion under electricity charges.