Family comes first! Punjab bags biggest share from Annual Development Budget
55 percent of the Annual Development Budget allocated to Punjab.
Dunya News Report (Madiha Fareed)
The federal government has once again treated Punjab as its favorite son as more than 55 percent of the annual development budget has been allocated to Punjab. Whereas KPK and Baluchistan only got 2.5 and 2.3 percent share respectively.
Senate’s standing committee on Planning and Development submitted a report to cabinet division detailing the recent disbursement of rupees 19 billion to provinces under the Annual Development budget. Punjab got 10.4 billion, Sindh 790 million, KPK 480 million and Baluchistan only 445 million. The federal capital Islamabad which is home to merely 2 million people got a generous amount of 700 million which accounts for 3.7 percent of the total allocation.
It is no secret that the small provinces have always complained about the federation’s tilt toward Punjab and serving Punjab’s interests at the cost of neglecting small provinces. Though the progress and development in Punjab is limited to a few big cities, the living conditions in Punjab are much better compared to the other three provinces. The living conditions in other provinces, particularly Balochistan are much worse as more than seventy percent of the province’s population lives below poverty line. Sindh and KPK governments have also been complaining about the federation “unfair” approach. Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Pervez Khattak has been a vocal critic of federal government’s discrimination against small provinces. He lambasted the federal government for not releasing the due funds to the KPK government.
Prime Minister has been criticized in the past for having a tendency to favor the Punjab province for he won a clear majority in Punjab. Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif accompanies the Prime Minister on International trips and is present in high-level meetings only because he is the brother of the PM, whereas no other chief ministers receives that kind of special treatment.
Shortly after he was sworn in as Prime Minister for the third time, Nawaz Sharif had pledged that his government’s top priority would be to alleviate poverty and backwardness from the underprivileged regions of the country, but the practice is entirely different as exhibited by the latest distribution of funds.
Supreme Court of Pakistan had banned Prime Minister’s discretionary funds to which PML-N has found a creative solution by constituting a steering committee that is authorized to release funds to MPs to work on the development projects in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The Member Parliament (MPs) of the Punjab’s opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) complain that the development funds which were supposed to be given to MPAs are instead given to the PML-Ns candidates in the particular constituencies.
Punjab holds all the cards when it comes to making the government in centre. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) only won a majority in Punjab but was able to form the government is centre. Punjab is the largest province in terms of population as it houses a population of over 110 million people. Punjab has 148 out of 272 seats in National Assembly, so whoever wins a majority in Punjab is able to make the government in centre. This also points out a much bigger issue which is the need for more administrative units in the country for fair representation of masses.
