HYDERABAD, May 9: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said that the Sindh government will present a surplus budget for the next fiscal year. He said that recent exploration of minerals in the province and their royalties would have a positive impact on budget.

Addressing a gathering of police officers and elected representatives at the police headquarters on Monday night, the chief minister expressed satisfaction over the performance of Sindh Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui and PPO Jehangir Mirza.

He announced Rs20 million for a housing scheme of policemen while Rs5 million for the Hyderabad regional police hospital and vocational training centres of men and women in the police headquarters.

Mr Arbab said that from the next financial year constables of the Sindh police would get salary that was being drawn by constables of the Punjab police.

He said that despite existence of black sheep and political expediencies, working of police was satisfactory because still good officers were fighting against criminals and laying down their lives.

He said that on account of political constraints there could not be shunting of such policemen who brought a bad name to the department.

He referred to the Shikarpur district where despite strong political polarisation police were working hard.

“It is my earnest desire to provide an ideal environment to the Sindh police as I always try to solve their problems”, Mr Arbab said.

He disagreed with people who he said considered the raise in salaries as non-development expenditure and said that officials’ pay scales needed to be revised.

He encouraged policemen to have some part time jobs which policemen of Islamabad were doing and there was no harm if they drive taxis and do some other work to increase their legitimate income.

He supported the construction of more hospitals as well as residential accommodation in the province but it could only be done through police-public cooperation.

He paid tributes to RPO Bachal Sangri and his team for expanding hospital with equipment at a cost of Rs5 million in record four months time.

He urged officers of the Sindh police to emulate Hyderabad region police.

He said that philanthropists were ready to donate money but they needed confidence that it would be utilised properly and honestly and promised to give funds to other districts provided the district police made some headway on their own in such welfare-oriented works.

He said that the release of money from the government treasury was no problem but its transparent and proper used was important.

He said that the Sindh government had attractive savings in funds this year and added that officials of the World Bank themselves approached him to offer loans though they had initially avoided.

“I was myself surprised when the secretary finance told me that we will have a surplus budget but it’s because of blessings of Almighty Allah that we will have that kind of budget” he said.

He remarked that the discovery of petrol, gas and other minerals would have positive impact on the next budget and conditions would improve.

He said that he would try his level best to give maximum residential accommodations to police.