The Balochistan government presented on Monday a Rs352.3 billion budget with heavy reliance on federal transfers.
Financial adviser Ruqia Hashmi presented the budget for 2018-19 fiscal year in the provincial assembly.
According to the budget speech, Rs264.04 billion have been allocated for non-development expenditures. The province allocated Rs88.3 billion for development expenditures.
Hashmi said the province will receive Rs290.29 billion through the federal transfers.
Further, the government increased the pay and pension by 10 per cent. In the next year, more than 8,000 new jobs will be created, it was announced.
The budge allocated a whopping Rs38 billion for law and order, Rs19 billion for health and Rs4 billion for livestock department.
The budget session began half an hour late. Speaker Raheela Durrani presided over the session.
The budget was scheduled to be announced last week but Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti had sought more time to present a “comprehensive budget”.
He further said the provincial government intended to present a comprehensive budget and that’s the reason behind the delay in its presentation.
Sarfraz denied that there were any disagreements between the stakeholders that led to the postponement.
The delay had drawn opposition parties ire, which said it had created an impression as if the public representatives couldn’t come up with the budget in time.
