Sindh Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah presented a budget of Rs 457 billion, with a development component of Rs 161 billion. Its salient feature was not so much the taxation measures, as the will to collect them. It must be remembered that it was Sindhs objections which held up the federal governments levying of a sales tax, because the province wanted to levy it on services. This was reflected in the estimate for collection of Rs 25 billion for the provincial sales tax on services. However, the Sindh government found its fiscal space taken over by the pay raises, which meant that the budget ended up being quite traditional. This is not supposed to be the case. With these the first truly post-devolution budgets, the provincial governments budgets should have brought some changes in the areas of devolution. The Sindh budget did not reflect any political urgency, thus reflecting a hidden disadvantage of having the President from the province, in which he took a great deal of personal interest. However, the Sindh government also includes the MQM as a coalition partner. Yet it also had to cater for the province having experienced its worst ever floods, with the rehabilitation effort moving on to succeeding years. The Rs 2 billion allocated in this ADP for rehabilitation of affected villages is part of overall Rs 5 billion, with the project being spread over three years. Similarly, Rs 11 billion has been allocated to the repair of the road network, so badly damaged by the floods. Because of the NFC, the budget almost seems a work in progress. The Sindh government has yet to take over the tax on services, for example. It has got an agreement to do so built into the NFC Award, but the tax will still be levied by the federal government under provincial supervision.