With the fiscal deficit in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the Federal Board of Revenue seemed to be struggling to meet even its revised revenue target of Rs2.135 trillion. Official data obtained from the Ministry of Finance suggests that the FBR collected just Rs41bn in first 12 days of the current month, leaving an uphill task of collecting Rs650bn in the remaining 48 days of the current fiscal year. The FBR has so far collected a total of Rs1.485tr in first 10 months. Data suggests that the government transferred about Rs1tr to provinces as their share out of the federal divisible pool. Non-tax revenue in first 10 months stood at Rs672bn, taking the total revenue to Rs2.157tr. After transferring provincial shares, the federal government was left with Rs1.157bn in the first eight months to meet expenses of the federal government. On the other hand, the federal government’s total expenditure stood at Rs2.450tr, including current expenditure of Rs2.208tr and development expenses of Rs242bn in 10 months. Officials said the provincial governments were able to provide a cash surplus of Rs84bn to help the federal government contain fiscal deficit to Rs5.1pc or about Rs1.2tr in the first 10 months of the current year. Meanwhile, the government released Rs10bn to the Pakistan State Oil to meet fuel requirements of the power sector, increasing the total power subsidies to Rs315bn in 10 months against annual target of Rs120bn that was later revised to Rs291bn as part of budget strategy paper approved by the federal cabinet of the previous government.
