KARACHI - The Sindh government has allocated Rs7 billion for the education sector and Rs6.3 billion for the health sector for the financial year 2010-11. For the current year, the government has allocated Rs4.207 billion for the education sector on account of non-development budget which was Rs3.160 billion during the financial year 2009-10. However, for the health sector the government has set aside Rs3.479 billion on account of non-development budget which was Rs2.069 in 2009-10. In the health budget, the provincial government had allocated Rs5 billion for the financial year 2009-10, that was 49 percent more than the previous health allocations. However, this amount was Rs1.148 billion for the fiscal year 2008-09. Conversely, on account of education sector, the government had given out Rs5.950 billion in the budget 2009-10, which was 27 percent higher than the budget of Rs2.861 billion for fiscal year 2008-09. As per Sindh Chief Minster Syed Qaim Ali Shah, the total education budget including that of District Governments is Rs60 billion. On Provincial side the government has increased the education development budget from Rs5.9 billion to Rs7 billion. An additional Rs6 billion has been earmarked for Boarding Schools and Comprehensive Schools. In addition, there is a Rs7 billion worth Sindh Education Reform Programme, which is under implementation with the support of World Bank and European Union since last two years. On the other hand, the Sindh government has raised its budgetary allocation for health to Rs16.9 billion for the fiscal year 2010-2011 against Rs5.7 billion in 2009-2010. As per details of the budget, announced by the Sindh Chief Minister in the assembly, Rs6.3 billion have been proposed under development of health sector and Rs10.6 in its recurrent side. The government intends to integrate the preventive and primary healthcare at the basic health unit level. It was announced that efforts will also be made to strengthen the secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities. The government claims that it has given phenomenal increase to health development budget. In 2007-08 it was only Rs1.2 billion and the government raised it to Rs5.7b in the current year. This is over 300 percent increase. For the next year the government is proposing to increase health development budget to Rs6.3 billion and Rs10.6 billion on recurrent side.