The budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 will play an important role in the progress and prosperity of the people while kicking off a new era of development, said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif while presiding over a meeting of the Provincial Cabinet on Friday in which budget proposals were approved.
Monetary Bill 2015 and revised estimates for the fiscal year 2014-15 were also approved in the meeting.
The cabinet also approved supplementary budget for financial year 2014-15 while proposals for imposition of sales tax on internet services and infrastructure development were unanimously rejected.
Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said that the government believes in equal development of urban and rural areas and splendid programmes have been evolved in the new budget for the development of rural areas in the next three years.
He said that work is being carried out on a big programme of repair and rehabilitation of rural roads and a huge sum of Rs 150 billion will be spent on this programme in the next three years.
“The historic programme of construction and rehabilitation of rural areas will revolutionise rural economy,” he added.
He said special attention has been paid in the new budget to energy projects, Saaf Pani project and development of education and health sectors. He said that work is being carried out speedily on power projects for resolving energy crisis and a number of energy projects will start generating electricity by the end of 2017.
He said that the budget will also make up the losses of the industrial, economic and agriculture sectors due to energy crisis during the last 15 years and claimed that this year’s budget is different from the last budget as equal attention has been paid to development of urban and rural areas. He said that development projects of billions of rupees will be completed on priority basis for the development of rural areas.