Staff Reporter
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that out of Rs1.2 trillion provincial budget Rs870.2 billion are spent on salaries, employees’ retirement benefits, operation expenses, grants, subsidies, including Rs75 billion to local bodies and repair and maintenance. Therefore, there remain a small space for development works, even then the provincial government with appropriate financial management carries out uplift works all over the province. He was addressing the visiting 45 trainee officers of Training Management & Research wing of Batch 2019 here on Thursday at CM House. The proramme was attended by Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi, Secretary Health Zahid Abbasi, Secretary P&D Shireen Narejo and others. The chief minister said that the budget of 2019-20 was Rs1.2 trillion against with consumption of Rs870 billion went to salaries, retirement benefits, operating expenses, interest payments, physical assets, repair and maintenance and grants and subsidies. He added that an amount of Rs72 billion was given to local bodies. “Now, we have decided to introduce in reforms in local bodies to make more effective and efficient,” he said. Shah said that 23.2 percent of the total budget has been given to education sector, 13 percent to health, 12 percent to home, 2.7 percent to Irrigation, 2.9 percent to Energy. He added that local government department was given 1.2 percent, agriculture 1.2 percent. Shah said that the development outlay was Rs284.04 billion, including Rs208 billion provincial, Rs20 billion district ADP, Rs51.5 billion foreign funded projects and Rs4.89 federal PSDP. “We have 1853 on-going schemes with 78 percent allocation and 852 new schemes with 22 percent allocation. To a question, the CM said that the Sindh was the only province which has constructed two bridges on river Indus and an airport at Tharparkar. “We have connected entire Sindh with small and major road network and now anywhere one can travel easily,” he said. Replying to a question, the chief minister said that all the Basic Health Units, except of Karachi and Nawabshah all have been given to PPHI and they all were operating perfectly. The chief minister said that had the vision of generating coal energy of Shaheed MohtArma Benazir Bhutto been allowed to continue Pakistan would have been a power-exporting country today. “Yes, we owned Mohtermas projects and today Sindh is the only province which generate electricity in the country,” he said and added its benefits have also been passed to the people of Thar who have been provided jobs and have become partners in the project.
