HYDERABAD, June 12: Sindh Minister for Fisheries Zahid Bhurgari has said contrary to speculations that the government will go on a spending spree to woo voters, the provincial budget is a continuation of development initiatives taken in first year of the government.

Talking to APP on phone, he said: “The five budgets which the People’s Party government has presented have been a success story since we had to tackle the financial crunch and two successive floods. Yet we came up with better balance sheets.”

The minister said Rs1 billion would be spent on construction of roads, flyovers, parks, water supply and sanitation projects in Hyderabad.

This would be in addition to the two roads being built to connect the city with Mirpurkhas and Badin, he added.

“The next year will also bring a host of measures to promote agriculture and support farmers who were badly hit by floods in 2010 and 2011,” he said, adding that the budget had proposed a whopping Rs10.9 billion allocation for the agriculture sector under the Annual Development Plan (ADP).

Hassan Askari, general secretary of Sindh Small Farmers Organisation, expressed hopes that the Rs2 billion allocation for loans through the Sindh Bank would help small growers to recover from the losses they suffered during floods.

The Sindh Bank has so far lent agricultural loans ranging between Rs100,000 and Rs500,000 to some 2,000 farmers in the province.

During the next financial year, the bank will be lending at a rate of seven per cent markup.

Mr Askari also hoped that the subsidised tractor scheme, which has an allocation of Rs2.8 billion for purchase of 15,000 subsidised tractors, would also help the farming community.

Only 6,000 tractors were distributed among farmers at subsidised rates last year.

Keeping these statistics in view, the announcement of 15,000 tractors will be a welcome step to give the sector a much needed boost, he added.

Mohammad Khan Sarejo, of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, welcomed the doubling of allocation for the irrigation system. He said growers had long been demanding an overall rehabilitation of the aging system.

The budget has recommended a sum of Rs7.5 billion in the ADP for water and drainage projects. .

MINORITIES’ WELFARE: Young Hindu Panchayat leader Prem Chand has hailed the proposed increase of over 550 per cent in the ADP for minority schemes.

The budget allocation will be raised from Rs110 million to Rs720 million.

Chand said there were hundreds of temples, graveyards and other religious places in the province that needed immediate renovation.

Amar Sindhu, a leader of the Women’s Action Forum, said “we welcome the increase in job quota for women to 25 per cent from five per cent”.—APP