US allocates 1.5 billion dollars for Pak in 2010 budget

Washington, Dec. 11 (ANI): The United States has allocated approximately 1.5 billion dollars for Pakistan in its budget for the 2010 fiscal year.

According to sources, the US House of Representatives has approved 1.459 billion in assistance for Pakistan as it passed a massive 1.1 trillion dollar appropriations bill.

The aid will be spent under Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this year, and is part of the 2010 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill.

Under the measure, 1.035 billion dollars will be allocated as economic support fund for Pakistan while other expenditure heads include health, law enforcement and security.

Washington is also likely to spend 268 million dollars on foreign military financing for Pakistan.

It may be noted that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her recent Pakistan visit, had offered to provide a total of 243.5 million dollars as aid to the troubled nation in addition to the 7.5 billion dollars that it will receive through the Kerry Lugar Bill over the next five years.

The tripled non-military aid to Islamabad received wide-scale protest in Pakistan from different quarters.

While Army claimed that the riders to the aid would impinge on the country's sovereignty, poltical leaders stressed that clauses stringed with the bill were a deliberate attempt by Washington to interfere in Pakistan's internal matters.

Several Senators had rejected the bill terming it 'a complete failure of the Gilani government and its lobbyists in the US'. (ANI)