PESHAWAR, June 23 The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed Rs294 billion budget for the year 2010-11 here on Wednesday.

The opposition members withdrew their cut motions about budgetary allocations enabling the government to pass total 57 demands for grants for the new financial year. Speaker Karamatullah Khan Chaghermati presided over the session.

General discussion on the budget was started on June 15 and all 57 cut motions were passed in three days. The proceedings were adjourned till 3pm Thursday.

The assembly had passed the outgoing financial year budget only in two days, because of the security situation, but this time extensive discussion was held on the new budget, which reflects improvement in the law and order situation in the provincial capital.

The assembly also adopted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Bill 2010 allowing the provincial tax collecting agencies to recover tax on capital value of immoveable property and one per cent increase in sales tax (services) besides bringing telecom sector into the net.

Meanwhile, Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that terrorists were attacking shrines to spark sectarian tension in the province. Talking to journalists in the assembly on Wednesday, he said that militants had planned to pit Deobandi and Barilvi Muslims against each other.

“Their (militants) agenda is to escalate sectarianism in the province by attacking shrines of saints in different areas,” he said.

A shrine was attacked in Sheikh Mohammadi area in Peshawar two days ago. The caretaker of the shrine was killed in the attack. Another shrine was attacked in Chamkani area on the outskirts of Peshawar.

The minister said that government would ensure protection of religious places across the province. He said that in some areas police had stopped women from visiting shrines because of security reasons. He said that the ban on the entry of women in shrines would be lifted very soon.