- Dar will brief cabinet before presenting budget in parliament
The federal budget for the fiscal year 2014-15 with proposed outlay amounting to Rs 3.960 trillion will be presented in the parliament on Tuesday (today).
Allocation amounting to Rs 1.3 trillion and Rs 7 trillion is likely to be made for the repayment of loan and interest on loan and defence expenses respectively in this budget. Subsidy of Rs 229 billion is likely to be provided to the people.
As per media reports tax revenue target is likely to be set at Rs 2.810 trillion and non-tax revenue collection is estimated at Rs 815 billion.
The federation will provide Rs 1.7 trillion to the provinces under the National Financial Commission award. The provinces will also receive grant to the tune of Rs 35 billion. A sum of Rs 85 billion is likely to be earmarked for income support program.
The government is mulling over raising the salary and pension ranging between 10 to 15 percent. A sum of Rs 225 billion is estimated to be earmarked on account of pension of employees and Rs 295 billion is estimated to be spent on salary.
The development budget of the federation has been proposed at Rs 525 billion. The federation can suffer deficit to the tune of Rs 1.630 trillion in the next budget. However, provinces will provide surplus amount of Rs 225 billion to the federation. This will set the overall deficit of the country at Rs 1.495 trillion.
Before tabling the budget in parliament, a meeting of the cabinet will be held under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will brief the meeting on the budget and later the cabinet will approve it.
Following the approval, the finance minister will present the budget in the National Assembly (NA) and senate. Formal debate on the budget will kick start after the interval of 4 days.
