'35 percent budget allocated to eliminate inter-district disparity in Punjab'

Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht has disclosed that 35 percent budget has been allocated for eliminating inter-district disparity in the province; "this policy is aimed at ensuring inclusive growth so that all the people could equally benefit and grow".

He stated this while addressing a seminar at Government College University (GCU) here on Friday on the topic of participation of higher education institutions for inclusive growth in Pakistan. Punjab Higher Education Minister Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfraz and GCU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Asghar Zaidi were also present on the occasion.

The Finance Minister observed how the past policies led to widening of economic inequalities in Punjab, especially between the centre and the southern Punjab.

"This unequal distribution of resources created disparity among regions and inequality among people in the province," he added.

He also said that the provincial government and line departments have been instructed to spend the budget for backward areas on the development of same localities. "This budget would not be utilized for the development work of any other area. One-third of the population resides in southern Punjab but only 17 percent budget was used to be allocated for southern Punjab districts before the election of 2018. The PTI government has introduced a new development model in the province and public sector investment has been made in areas which are usually ignored by the private sector," he added.

According to him, dependency on private sector is being increased in other sectors. The incumbent government has introduced provincial growth strategy and more than 88 indicators have been identified that directly influence the GDP.

As far as the participation of higher education institutions in national development is concerned, the policy formulation process would remain incomplete without the feedback of research scholars.

The educational experts are being consulted to deal with administrative affairs.

He pledged his full commitment for allocation of maximum resources for education and health sector. He said that the cabinet had passed a law that resources allocated for development of underdeveloped areas in the budget would not lapse.

Meanwhile, other speakers laid stress on revamping grading and student assessment criteria in educational institutions to improve the quality of graduates. Besides, they also called upon the government to promote gender equality and linking its economic

initiatives with the education policy for an inclusive growth.

Punjab Minister Raja Yasir cited the production poor quality of graduates and unskilled labour force over a period of time as one of the major reason for failure to attract the high-tech industries to Pakistan. "Public sector universities needed to improve education and research standards to attract industries and universities needed to revamp grading and assessment systems to produce quality graduates," he added.

Dr Sohail Jehangir Malik, President of Innovative Development Strategies LLC, USA, shared his research work focusing on the inadequacy and poor quality of the available economic data, the decayed capacity for analyses, implementation and service delivery and the various disconnects within the structure of the economy.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019