ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to allocate Rs nine billion to the Prime Minister Health Insurance Scheme (PMHIS), in the budget, for the upcoming financial year 2016-17. According to documents available with the Daily Times the government had earmarked Rs three billion for PMHIS in the budget for the current fiscal 2015-16 and a sum of Rs 1.20 billion has been released out of the allocated funds. ECNEC had accorded approval on May 13, 2015 and poor people from 23 districts were to benefit from this scheme. Over 45,000 cards have been issued to people under this scheme in the federal capital. Cards are being issued to more people. Overall more than 200,000 cards have been issued so far under this scheme all over the country. The government is providing insurance ranging between Rs 250,000 to Rs 300,000 on every health insurance card. It has been proposed by the government in the next budget for the year 2016-17 to extend facility of protective vaccination to six million children and treatment to 6.8 million pregnant women. A proposal has also been given to enhance the budget by four billion rupees for special areas in the next year. This way the overall budget of special areas will stand at Rs 42 billion. A proposal has been laid down to earmark Rs 21 billion for FATA, 12 billion for AJK and nine billion rupees for Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in the upcoming budget. The government has allocated a sum of Rs over 19.32 billion in the current budget for FATA and a sum of Rs 19.19 billion has been released out of the total allocation budget for the ongoing development projects in FATA. These projects include construction of a road from Ziara to Dabori, Nahqi tunnel, Moh Block Allocation Federal-ChahoTangi small dam, SW mand agency Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Funds to the tune of Rs 9.93 billion have been allocated for uplift projects in GB in the budget. Rs 8.96 billion have been released out of the total funds. Likewise Rs 13.30 billion have been earmarked for different projects of AJK in the current financial year budget and Rs 12.70 billion have been released so far.