QUETTA, June 22: The Balochistan government has allocated Rs11.76 billion for Annual Development Plan (ADP) for the fiscal year 2005-06, showing a decline of 17.64 per cent over the ongoing year’s Rs14.28 billion.
The budget documents on Wednesday indicated only Rs5.06 billion resources to finance this huge development plan which include Rs2.76 billion foreign assistance, Rs2.70 billion as second tranche of Balochistan Resource Management Programme (BRMP) and Rs600 million in technical assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB). The province demanded Rs8 billion from the federal government to fill the gap.
Balochistan Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah while presenting the budget for the fiscal year 2005-06, informed the assembly that Rs5.4 billion had been earmarked for road construction, about 47 per cent of the total ADP outlay. The provincial government would give Rs4.41 billion and Rs999 million would come from foreign assistance.
Mr Shah announced free education up to intermediate in all the government-run institutions. A foreign assistance of Rs1.61 billion, almost 48 per cent of the total foreign assistance of Rs2.76 billion, was for education. The provincial government was providing about Rs604 million for this purpose.
The province allocated Rs893 million for 74 schemes that include 39 new schemes of Balochistan Development Authority under the next year’s ADP.
For water sector the provincial government would provide Rs825 million for 134 projects that include 61 new and 73 ongoing projects.
An amount of Rs221 million would be provided to the Public Health Engineering to implement 60 water supply schemes in the province. A block allocation of Rs335 million shown in the budget documents for seven other schemes but no details of the projects were given.
The government would provide Rs165 million for Public Representative Programme that would be spend through members of the provincial assembly.
The finance minister also announced that 1,166 development schemes would be implemented under the next year’s ADP that included 614 ongoing schemes and 554 new development schemes. The budget documents indicated that around 80 per cent of the total outlay of ADP would be spent on ongoing projects — Rs8.41 billion on ongoing schemes and Rs3.1 billion on new schemes.
For health sector Rs1.9 billion had been earmarked, of which more than Rs1 billion would come from foreign assistance and Rs900 million from the provincial government.
The agriculture sector would be provided with Rs67 million and the livestock sector would get Rs47 million. An amount of Rs17 million would be spent on forestry. The government allocated meagre amounts for wildlife (Rs2.9 million), culture (Rs3 million) and Quetta Development Authority (Rs3.5m).
Fisheries sector would get Rs21 million for three new schemes under the ADP.
The government would provide Rs23m for implementing five new and ongoing schemes for boosting industrial sector of the province. The government has a plan to implement 21 schemes including 16 new schemes at a cost of Rs67 million. The mineral sector would receive Rs66 million for 8 new and old schemes while 15 schemes would be implemented in the power sector at a cost of Rs98 million.
The environment sector would get Rs112 million during the next financial year for 6 projects and physical planning and health sector would get Rs221 million under the ADP for 2005-06. The provincial government allocated around Rs1bn for 33 schemes for social welfare that include 29 new projects which would be completed during 2005-06.
The government would spend Rs91 million on 14 development schemes through local governments.