Sindh budget to focus on tackling COVID-19, locust attacks: Bilawal Bhutto  

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Sunday said that the upcoming Sindh budget for fiscal year 2020-21 would focus primarily on tackling COVID-19 pandemic and locusts’ attacks in the province, ARY NEWS reported.

Taking a briefing from the Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah on Sindh budget during a video-link meeting, Bilawal Bhutto said that focusing on both of them in the budget would help the province in saving precious lives and avoiding famine threat in the province.

“Sindh should prepare a poor-friendly budget despite ongoing crisis and limited resources,” he said as the chief minister briefed him regarding schemes to be included in the next budget to deal with the pandemic.

The PPP chairman was also apprised regarding social security and anti-poverty programmes to be launched by the province.

“We have planned to provide subsidy to farmers who remained affected due to locusts’ attacks. We also plan to give subsidy on imported rice seeds, fertilizers and pesticides in the next budget,” said Murad Ali Shah.

The PPP chairman directed the Sindh government to prioritize relief for health and agriculture sector in the upcoming provincial budget. “The province has already suffered due to shortfall in federal transfers,” he said while divulging details that the Sindh received Rs 229 billion less from its Rs835 billion share in terms of federal transfers.

This is a grave injustice with the Sindh and other provinces, he said.

It is pertinent to mention here that Sindh province on Sunday reported 1744 fresh cases of COVID-19 during the past 24-hours as 16 more patients lost their lives due to it, ARY NEWS reported while quoting Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

In a daily briefing, the chief minister said that 8119 test have been performed in the province during the last 24 hours. “As many as 650 people have so far died from the infection in the province,” he said.

The chief minister said that at present there were 18,682 patients, who suffer from novel coronavirus and of them, 414 are said to be in critical condition while 67 are put on ventilator.