Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar here Thursday chaired a meeting about the provincial budget and annual development programme for the financial year 2020-21. Chairman P&D and Secretary Finance briefed the participants about the upcoming budget and ADP details.

Addressing the meeting, the CM said that budget priorities were needed to be focused in the backdrop of the prevailing situation, as the country was facing an unusual situation due to coronavirus pandemic.

While announcing that the social sector, including healthcare, will be given importance, the CM directed to further decrease unnecessary expenditures in the next financial year and stressed that provincial departments will have to follow strict financial discipline.

Austerity should be encouraged by controlling expenditures at every level, he said. The departments should, themselves, curtail their unnecessary expenditures and solid steps be taken for a further decrease in expenditures in the next financial year.

The CM mentioned that decrease in subsidies being given in different sectors should be reviewed and attention be given to public-private partnership in next year's ADP. Similarly, a comprehensive programme be devised for giving relief to the common man as the government is committed to protecting the indigent strata despite difficult circumstances.

The CM said an amount of Rs7.87 billion had been distributed in more than 656,000 deserving families under CM Punjab Insaf Imdad Package and Ehsaas Programme. Such programmes were launched in the past for personal projection and rights of the needy were usurped by an undue distribution of resources, the CM added.

Moreover, CM Sardar Usman Buzdar attended the prayer meeting at his office to pay homage to late PTI MPA Shaheen Raza on Thursday. The participants expressed a deep sense of sorrow over the death of Shaheen Raza due to coronavirus and offered Fateha for the departed soul. The CM paid tributes to her socio-political services and announced to name an institute in Gujranwala after her.