Education, agriculture, health sectors: speakers seek additional funds

Participants at a pre-budget seminar have stressed the need for additional allocation of funds for education, agriculture, health sectors and economic development in the upcoming fiscal budget for 2012-13.
The consultative pre-budget seminar on "Citizens' Voice for Development" held under auspices of the Finance and Planning Development Department of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in collaboration with Department for International Development (DFID) UKaid held here at a local hotel in district Mardan on Tuesday. The participants highlighted the need for economic development working on the strengths of the districts.
The participants said that education, health and water and sanitation are priority sectors for development and stressed the need for provision of additional funds for bringing improvement in existing performance and quality of services. They highlighted the weaknesses in the service delivery and the poor performance of the staff delivering the services. During the seminar women participants highlighted the specific needs of women particularly in the areas of violence to women, vocational training and the need to raise awareness of their legal rights to afford them better protection.
The Secretary-General, Mardan Chamber of Commerce and Industry demanded for development funds in the marble industry to introduce new technology in the quarries mining for marble and granite.
He pointed out that 72 percent of marble is lost in the blasting process thereby only 28 percent used productively which is a tremendous loss of valuable asset for the province. There is a need to develop roads and transport infrastructure linking the quarries to the market place, he added. Senior officers of the finance department and district administration including Commissioner and District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Mardan attended the consultative pre-budget workshop in the district.
A representative of the women chamber of commerce Mardan recommended that there should be women specific schemes for employment and economic development. She appreciated the Bacha Khan Khpal Rozgar Scheme and recommended that there should be more communication from the government so that women could benefit from such schemes.
There was unanimity by the participants on welcoming this initiative of involving the various stakeholders as part of the future budget preparations. They particularly thanked and appreciated efforts made by the provincial and district authorities to meet and discuss issues to improve the quality of life of the citizens.
They thanked the Secretary Finance who chaired the meeting along with Chief Economist, the Commissioner, DCO and the Provincial Finance Controller who attended the meeting. Majority of the participants stressed on the need for improving service provision by allocating more resources to operations and maintenance. The Secretary Finance Sahibzada Saeed Ahmad explained that a new concept of conditional grant to districts was introduced with the help of DFID. This method of resource allocation for improving service delivery has proved beneficial and will be replicated in more districts for the next financial year, he assured.
He thanked the participants for their time and contributions and responded to some of the issues raised at the seminar which are already being tackled through the different initiatives by the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He said Bacha Khan Khpal Rozgar Programme, Hunarmand Programme, Hunarmand Programme and Storey da Pakhtunkhwa Programme were already launched by the provincial aimed at reducing unemployment and opportunities to the poor. The Commissioner Mardan Division said, to prepare pro-people budget, the government offices should be open for the public to have their access for suitable suggestions and opinions prior to the budget.