Daily Times

LAHORE: Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed Monday strongly criticised the government for presenting “anti-poor” budget and said that the daily expense of the Governor’s House and the Chief Minister’s House was Rs 2.8 million.

During his opening speech on the budget debate for fiscal year 2017-18, the opposition leader asked the government to allocate a house to the governor by evacuating the existing huge Governor’s House to slash the daily expenses as the Punjab’s debt had soared to Rs 712 billion.

He slammed the government for buying a helicopter for the chief minister for Rs 1.76 billion.

As soon as the opposition leader started his speech, the treasury members tried to interrupt his speech by blowing whistles and chanting slogans. Later, lawmaker Zaeem Qadri pacified the female members of the ruling party who left the House after some time.

Anyhow, the opposition leader continued his speech and said that the government had failed to reduce load shedding as promised.

He said that the government had slashed Rs two billion development funds for the energy sector.

Referring to the education sector, he said that the government had decreased education budget from 18.5 percent to 17 percent, while the annual budget for sports stood at one third as compared to the last year’s allocation.

He said that various reports confirmed that enrolment of children in schools had also been reduced which was a clear sign of the government’s failure.

He informed the House that the government had slashed Rs 550 million in the budget allocation for the Social Welfare and Baitul Maal departments while not a single penny had been earmarked for the Ashiana Housing Scheme.

He said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had ignored agriculture sector in the budget which he said was being run on ad hoc basis.

He disclosed that that the government could use only 37 percent of the funds allocated for the agriculture sector in the last fiscal.

He demanded the government to introduce ‘kisan credit cards’ for local farmers.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed opposition leader said that around 13.5 million educated youth in the province was unemployed. He said cab schemes introduced by the government would not end unemployment in the province.

Moreover, he said that the government had not released funds for the women hostel sport programme introduced last year.