Sindh Assembly on Tuesday approved the province's Rs 1.14 trillion financial budget for the fiscal year 2018-19 with a majority vote in addition to Rs 1.1 trillion supplementary financial plan for the current fiscal year, despite its rejection by the opposition members. The ruling party's MPAs enjoying overwhelming majority rejected all the budget related cut-motions moved by the opposition members.
The Sindh government on May 10, 2018 presented a total Rs 1.14 trillion budget for the FY 2018-19 but sought spending only for three months until September 30, 2018. "I slam those who want to make a separate province in Sindh. Sindh was one and will remain one," Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said in his concluding remarks on the budget and defended his government's development work claiming to have improved health and education sectors and improved services to meet basic needs of the people during the ten-year tenure.
He said his government carried out uplift work across the province without any discrimination. However, Shah criticised the federal government for funds cuts that badly hurt the development work in Sindh. He said the Centre pledged to give Rs 400 billion to Sindh but provided only Rs 150 billion to execute new schemes in the province.
Of a total Rs 27 billion, only Rs 330 million was given to Sindh for water projects, Shah told the house. He said National Economic Council (NEC) that is responsible for federal budget approval had pledged a bigger share to Sindh. For energy sector, he said, Sindh received only Rs 125 million from allocated sum of Rs 26 billion.
"A letter in March says that federal government will provide Rs 580 billion from Rs 627 billion to Sindh with Rs 29 billion deduction of which the provincial [tax] collection is Rs 199 million," he said, adding that the government is giving preference to the long-running uplift projects and completed 536 schemes. Other 721 schemes are under way this fiscal year, he said.
Of 2726 schemes, Murad Shah claimed government would complete 958 during the next fiscal year. He said "whoever wins the polls to form government we will help hand over these schemes." He also claimed credit to the PPP government for peace restoration in Karachi. He lauded the citizens for struggling bravely against terrorism.
Shah declined to recognize the opposition leader's claim that Sindh government spent Rs 1500 billion in the last five years. He said only Rs 833 billions have been spent between fiscal years 2008-09 and 2016-17. He said government has allocated Rs 7.5 billion for agriculture sector development with over Rs 2 billion for the current fiscal year.
Sindh CM also referred to scores of projects that the PPP government has carried out in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Thatta and Makli, Sujawal, Larkana, Tharparkar and other districts and towns of the province. He said Thar reservoirs abounds 175 billion tons of coal as the government set up a Thar Foundation with Rs 900 million to carry out public welfare of the area. The government is main stakeholder in Thar Foundation, he said.