KARACHI: A spokesman for the Sindh government said on Monday that the Pakistan Peoples Party government was giving utmost importance to the health and education sectors as it allocated billions of rupees in the budget 2014-15.

Reacting on a media report about the performance of the government, the spokesman said that the matchless performance of the PPP government was also evident from the allocation of Rs 134.32 billion and Rs43.583bn in the head of non-development expenditure of the education and health sectors in the budget.

The spokesman gave full credit to the leadership of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah who had entrusted the responsibility to most senior members of his cabinet.

He recalled the tangible development and delivery record of the two sectors and pointed out that it was also for the first time that the government had made school-specific budget for 43,000 schools in Sindh to ensure each school get its earmarked budget.

He said that 10 public school at Umerkot, Sanghar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Ghotki, Matiari, Kambar Shahdadkot, Gadap, Dadu and Jacobabad; eight new cadet colleges at Dadu, Gadap, Mithi, Khairpur, Karampur, Jacobabad, Badin, Tando Jam and two cadet colleges for girls at Shaheed Benazirabad and Ghari Khuda Bux were being established.

Besides, the spokesman said, the Bilawal Bhutto Engineering College at Lyari, Govt Girls Degree College at Tando Jam, and Law College at Sukkur and Karachi had also been planned and work on establishment of the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto University of Law would soon be initiated.

Similarl, the government also completed 19 other schemes in the education sector, including establishment of a law college at Hala, construction of 137 schools in Umerkot, etc.

The spokesman said that when the PPP government came to power, the government inherited deteriorated condition of government schools — including 5,000 closed schools in the province — and untrained teaching staff in the functional schools.

He said that of the 5,000 closed schools, the Sindh government managed to reopen about 2,000 schools, while remaining 3,000 schools would be reopened soon as some 20,000 schoolteachers were being recruited.

The spokesman said the government had provided professional training to more than 50,000 teachers to ensure qualitative education in the province.

He said that the PPP government was also planning to convert the Provincial Institute of Teaching Education into a university to enhance the capacity of the teachers and standard of education.

Referring to the performance of the government in the health sector, the spokesman said the non-salary budget of this sector was constantly being increased on an yearly basis.

Besides work on about 100 development schemes was underway at a cost of Rs12bn. Some 84 new schemes had been initiated this year, he added.

He said major schemes under the expansion and improvement of district headquarters hospitals programme also included 10 district headquarters hospitals, up-gradate of seven taluka headquarters hospitals into district headquarters hospitals, establishment of 41 trauma centres and repair of 39 taluka hospitals.

The 84 major new schemes included establishment of new OPD Complex at Civil Hospital Karachi at a cost of Rs 6.2bn, establishment of 500-bed teaching hospital in Jamshoro, construction of 400-bed hospital at NIPA, Karachi at a cost of Rs1.7bn, establishment of a cardiology hospital, Kidney Centre in Hyderabad, etc.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd , 2014