Punjab Finance Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman on Saturday presented annual budget of Punjab for the year 2012-13 with total outlay of Rs782 billion. In his budget speech the minister said the federal government has been doing excesses with Punjab over power distribution, inflicting serious harm to the industries of the province and rendering people without jobs. He announced to allocate Rs 10 billion for the next financial for power generation keeping in view federal government’s apathy to redress the province’s power woes. He announced a 20% increase in salaries of government employees and a 5% reduction in salaries of MPAs. Around 125,000 laptops will be distributed to students under the scheme of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. “We had allocated Rs9 billion for the energy sector last year, but the sector did not see any progress because of the federal government. We have tried to solve the issues ourselves. Now, we are allocating Rs10 billion for the energy sector.” The minister said 29 billion had been allocated for power projects to be set up on canals. Rehman said that the power crisis was deadly poison for the country’s economy. The minister also suggested a 5-percent decrease in the salaries of cabinet members as part of austerity measures. The finance minister, accusing the federal government of inefficiency, claimed that the provincial government met with a lot of hurdles in the energy sector and many projects were disrupted because of the federal government.