PESHAWAR, April 26: Speakers at a pre-budget consultative workshop have said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should maintain fiscal discipline by keeping its expenditures within budget targets and called for enhancing funds allocation to health, education and social sectors for brining improvement in service delivery.

They suggested that the government should encourage private sector for achieving economic growth, prepare a tentative plan for development of agriculture and livestock sectors besides exploiting more potential resources of the province.

The workshop was held under the auspices of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Department of Planning and Development with the technical assistance of UKaid-funded Provincial Reforms Programme here on Thursday.

Senior Minister for Planning and Development Rahim Dad Khan was the chief guest on the occasion, while secretary P&D Saleeem Khan, reforms coordinator, department of finance, Tariq Rasheed, and officials from other relevant departments were among the key speakers.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said that the government had evolved a comprehensive strategy to improve economic growth. He said that the government had focused on social sector in the previous budget, and the policy would remain intact in the upcoming budget for 2012-13. He explained that through such pre-budget programmes the government wanted to get proposals and input from different stakeholders for preparing a balanced budget for the next financial year.

He assured the participants that all recommendations focusing on the welfares of the poor would be incorporated in the budget.

The senior minister said that the provincial government would present the budget for upcoming financial year in the first week of June, APP reported.

Experts from agriculture, health and education sectors and officials of relevant departments were invited to the workshop to develop recommendations for preparation of the upcoming budget.

Majority of the experts stressed on improving the service delivery and taking proactive steps for development of existing health and education infrastructure besides focusing on improvement of agriculture, livestock farming and tourism sectors.

On the occasion, reforms coordinator Tariq Rasheed stressed the need for improvement in service delivery at grassroots level. He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had been facing enormous fiscal challenges, but allocation was made for building new education infrastructure. He observed that the economic growth had stagnated due to deteriorating law and order situation, while investment ratio was negligible, which impacted economy of the province.

He said that the objective of getting input from various stakeholders was aimed at preparing a people-friendly budget.