Govt to reprioritize its budget to divert resources for flood victims: PM
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has held out an assurance that the government would reprioritize its budget to divert necessary resources towards flood affected areas but developmental activities would also continue in the country. He was responding to points raised by leader of the opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Engineer Ameer Muqam in the National Assembly Wednesday.
The Prime Minister said Foreign Minister is out of the country and on his return back the task of prioritizing the budgetary expenditure would be taken up. Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said the government was already providing resources for flood affected people without waiting for foreign assistance. It is providing initial compensation of twenty thousand rupees to each affected family and it would also provide cash grant of eighty thousand rupees for construction of their houses.
He said this would involve about three point five billion rupees would be spared from the government’s own resources. He pointed out that winter is approaching and provision of shelter to the affected people is the number one priority of the government. About provision of resources for the quake affected areas, the Prime Minister said a meeting of ERRA would also be convened on return of the Finance Minister to the country.
He said bulk of the reconstruction work in earthquake affected areas began during tenure of the present government. He said he had a meeting with the President, Prime Minister and Chief Secretary of Azad Kashmir and assured them that necessary resources would be provided for reconstruction activities.
The Prime Minister pointed out that it was the present government gave Balochistan more than what it got during the last sixty-three years including Aghaz Haqooq-e-Balochistan. Gilani said he has asked an MNA from Balochistan Abdul Qadir Baloch to give his input on what to do to resolve problems of the province.
He said after 18th amendment more financial resources have been transferred to the provinces and they have to take care of their development. He said the government would ensure that Balochistan does not get less than other provinces from federal development programme. He also held out an assurance to parliamentarians that their development programmes would continue as usual without any discrimination.
Earlier, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan referred to crucial issues like NATO incursions and case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and proposed that the present session of the House should be extended so that meaningful discussions could take place on national issues. He also demanded that legal and constitutional provision should be evoked to bring back former President Pervez Musharraf. Both Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Engineer Muqam complained that funds for quake affected areas of Hazara have been stopped and led a token walkout of the opposition in protest.-SANA
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