Pakistan, June 28 -- The federal budget has allocated Rs 650 billion for the Federal Public sector development program for this fiscal year, of which Rs 20 billion goes to the health sector in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. As compared to the budgetary allocation of the year 2019-20, only 1.132 billion has been added to the health sector and the total figure Rs 14.508 billion. This budget will cover 28 ongoing programs whereas 24 new health schemes are also there in the pipeline.

State Minister Hammad Azhar talked about the ongoing pandemic several times in his budget speech but nothing significant has been given to the health sector for improvement of healthcare services. There is much left for provincial governments in this situation....