The government is providing additional resources to accelerate the efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) in Punjab, said Punjab Minister for Law, Excise and Taxation and Finance Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman while talking to a delegation of party workers at his residence on Saturday.
He said the Punjab government has given top priority to the health and education sectors.
“Major focus of the government is to provide health facilities to the people by strengthening Primary Health Care and Disease Preventive Programmes,” he said, adding that 95% of discretionary funds were being used for the treatment of under privileged people as well as for grant in aid to the poor people.
He said that thorough attention was also being paid to education and health sectors while development budget of current fiscal year was 17 percent more as compared to previous year.
“The budget allocated for education is Rs.274 billion which is 26.25 percent of total expenditures whereas the budget allocated for health Rs 121.80 billion which is 11.66 percent of total expenditures of the government,” he said.
He further said that the government has provided extra Rs 2 billion for the control of communicable diseases whereas, budget for ongoing expenditure for health sector has been increased by 19.8%.
He said that issuing of health insurance card will cost government Rs 4 billion resulting in provision of state of the art healthcare facilities even in private health institutions to the people.
He said that Rs 600 million has been reserved to establish a dialysis facility for the poor kidney patients and Rs 1 billion was reserved for mobile health units.
