The Seventh National Finance Commission was constituted by President Asif Ali Zardari on July 24, 2009, within the dictates of Article 160 of the Constitution with a clear vision of the autonomy of Provinces which now have a much larger share in the federal divisible pool than in the past.
There has been a paradigm shift in the criteria regarding distribution of national resources from just one factor ie population into multidimensional aspects which include poverty, backwardness, revenue generation, collection capacity and inverse population density in a province.
HEALTH - A Roadmap for a Healthy Future As a major step towards providing health cover and basic health facilitates to the common people of Pakistan, the present Government launched the health policy that focuses on equity and equality.
Attention is paid to primary, promotional and curative health services with special emphasis upon Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI), reproductive health, prevention of communicable diseases and health cover for women both in rural and urban areas. For that purpose, the Government has appointed 20,000 lady health workers in the last three years.
Another landmark has been setting up of Human Organs Transplant Authority through legislation by the Parliament. The aim is to check unlawful sale of human organs and other malpractices.
INDUSTRIES Initiatives Towards Hi-Growth Economy Although agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan's economy, it still heavily relies on industries. Well aware of the importance of this sector, the Government has taken several initiatives to set up new industries.
The Government has set up several embroidery centers in southern Punjab, established skill development centers in earthquake affected Northern areas and has set up Pakistan Chemical and Energy Sector skilled development Centers in Interior Sindh. Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation has set up skill centers for people of rural areas to promote their traditional cottage industry which earlier was not recognised. Some of these centers are set on private-public partnerships.
The Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation has established Pakistan Stone Development Company at the cost of Rs 211.58 million to extract precious stones with the help of latest mining technology. Other projects of the Government include Marble Cities at Risalpur and Loralai and Buner where Mining training will be imparted.
EDUCATION Knowledge for Development The People's Government formulated National Education Policy through national consensus after assuming power in 2008. All the stakeholders namely the respective Provincial Governments, Higher Education Commission, the Pakistan Engineering Council, The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Religious Affairs were taken on board and the National Education Policy was announced by the Federal Government on 09 September, 2009. The policy aims at providing policy directions from Federal Government to Provinces in developing their curricula.
Under the Public Sector Development Programme, the Government had earmarked an allocation of Rs 8.097 billion for 86 approved and 15 unapproved projects during the fiscal year 2009-10. Besides, the Government released funds under the President's Education Sector Reform Projects for the projects in Sindh, Balochistan, FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in order to provide better facilities in educational institutions.
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