The only opposition member in Balochistan Assembly and former federal minister, Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind, has hurled criticism at the Balochistan government's Budget 2008-09 and termed it as frustrated and jugglery of words.
Talking to APP while giving his reaction on the provincial budget on Sunday, he said the government had granted only Rs 3 billion to the provincial government. The grant was unreasonable and mockery of the delegation, which visited Islamabad and provided only timely oxygen to the provincial government.
He fulminated against the budget, saying that it had given incentives and protection to white-collar class rather than giving protection to the poor and working class in the province.
Rind said that the government had not announced any new mega projects in the budget for the province, but it had showed the continuation of the projects, which had been launched by the previous government, as its own projects in the budget. He said the budget had deprived the people from the provision of basic life amenities to them, which would soon become public.
He lashed out at the expanded Cabinet consisting of 47 ministers at the time when the government itself is making hue and cry for facing financial crisis in the province.
Meanwhile, Baloch nationalist leaders, who boycotted the general elections, including National Party leader Dr Hai Baloch, general secretary BNP-M Habib Jalib, and provincial Jamaat Islami chief Maulana Hashmi termed the budget anti-poor and anti-desperate class people.
They said the government had not given attention to the flood-stricken people in the province, but it had given priority only to the particular districts in the province. They said the budget was an administrative budget and it was not pro-poor and people-friendly budget for the province.