Lahore (Staff Report/Agencies): The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government on Tuesday presented Punjab budget for the remaining eight months of current fiscal year with a total outlay of Rs 2026.51 billion
Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht presented the budget in the Punjab assembly.
In his budget speech, Bakht said that PTI's first hundred days agenda will lay foundation of a progressive and prosper Punjab. He said that PTI reforms agenda is public friendly.
He said that receipt of revenue have been estimated 1652 billion rupees whereas an amount of 1276 billion rupees will be received from federal divisible pool.
He said provincial revenue has been estimated at 376 billion rupees while the current expenditure estimate for the ongoing fiscal year is 1264 billion rupees. He said that an amount of 238 billion rupees has been proposed for annual development programme.
In May, the PML-N-led government presented supplementary budget of Rs85.6 billion. Punjab’s then finance minister Dr Aysha Pasha, in her speech in the Punjab Assembly, stated that Punjab’s per capita growth was highest compared with other provinces, while the provincial revenue collection had increased by 345 per cent since 2008, which helped improve availability of civic facilities in the province.
Besides, the Punjab government supported all other provincial governments in different aspects and Nawaz Sharif Kidney Hospital Sawat was one of such examples of the support. The Punjab government, despite having all constitutional rights, given to it under Article 125 and 126 of the Constitution, did not present budget for the next fiscal year to give respect to the public mandate of the provincial government to be given to it through vote in the upcoming general election.
“We have given the right to the next elected government to use the provincial exchequer and allocate the resources in accordance with its priorities. Therefore, we are tabling only supplementary budget for the ongoing fiscal year 2017-18,” the minister said.
According to the budget documents, the government would spend the highest supplementary budget on education sector amounting to Rs19.863 billion, followed by roads and bridges 19.104 billion and health services Rs17.162 billion. This explains the priority areas of the government during the ongoing fiscal year 2017-18.
