ISLAMABAD: The government in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province is set to present its annual financial budget 2024-25 today, Friday, state-run media confirmed.
State broadcaster Radio Pakistan said Balochistan Finance Minister Mir Shoaib Nosherwani will present the budgetary proposals in the provincial assembly at 4:00 p.m.
“Balochistan budget for next fiscal year will be presented in provincial assembly in Quetta on Friday,” Radio Pakistan said.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Quetta on Sunday, Balochistan’s Planning and Development Minister Zahoor Ahmed Buledi and Finance Minister Nosherwani announced that employee salaries would see a 25 percent increase for grades 1 to 16, a 20 percent increase for grades 17 to 22, and a 15 percent increase in pensions in the upcoming budget.
Both ministers said the budget layout would exceed Rs850 billion while the federal budget allocated Rs58 billion for the southwestern province under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) head for the upcoming fiscal year.
Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, which shares porous borders with Afghanistan and Iran, has been wracked by an insurgency launched by ethnic Baloch militants for decades.
Baloch nationalists have long accused the Pakistani government of monopolizing profits from Balochistan’s abundant natural resources, saying it has led to political marginalization and economic exploitation.
However, Pakistani administrations have denied these allegations, citing several development initiatives launched in the province to improve local living conditions.
Balochistan to present budget 2024-25 today
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Balochistan to present budget 2024-25 today
- Provincial government announced last week that budget layout will exceed Rs850 billion
- Balochistan ministers also announced increase in government salaries in FY25 budget
Pakistani students stuck in Afghanistan permitted to go home
- The border between the countries has been shut since Oct. 12
- Worries remain for students about return after the winter break
JALALABAD: After three months, some Pakistani university students who were stuck in Afghanistan due to deadly clashes between the neighboring countries were “permitted to go back home,” Afghan border police said Monday.
“The students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (northwest Pakistan) who were stuck on this side of the border, only they were permitted to cross and go to their homes,” said Abdullah Farooqi, Afghan border police spokesman.
The border has “not reopened” for other people, he said.
The land border has been shut since October 12, leaving many people with no affordable option of making it home.
“I am happy with the steps the Afghan government has taken to open the road for us, so that my friends and I will be able to return to our homes” during the winter break, Anees Afridi, a Pakistani medical student in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, told AFP.
However, worries remain for the hundreds of students about returning to Afghanistan after the break ends.
“If the road is still closed from that side (Pakistan), we will be forced to return to Afghanistan for our studies by air.”
Flights are prohibitively expensive for most, and smuggling routes also come at great risk.
Anees hopes that by the time they return for their studies “the road will be open on both sides through talks between the two governments.”
