The Punjab government has decided to present the provincial budget for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2017-2018 on June 2 during the 30th session of the Punjab Assembly, and the government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is likely to earmark a huge sum of Rs600 billion for the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for next fiscal year.
The government decided to increase the amount of development budget by Rs50 billion this year as it will be the last budget of the PML-N government and it wants to complete all the ongoing projects and schemes before the next general elections. According to the Punjab government, the provincial budget will be presented at 2:30 PM on Friday. The focus of the budget will be more on the development projects and education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, clean drinking water, and energy sectors will be the priority of the government.
It is worth mentioning here that the PML-N government had earmarked Rs400 billion for development projects during 2015-2016, but this amount was increased by Rs550 billion in the budget of 2016-2017. Now, the government has decided to earmark Rs600 billion for the development schemes. Provincial Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha said on Monday that no new tax will be levied in the budget; however, the sales tax will be imposed on some services to widen the tax net. Interest-free loans will be provided for the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Vocational Training Programmes will also be expanded to the modern lines, she said.
Last year, the government had earmarked a huge sum of Rs168.87 million in the development budget for the social sector, including education, health, water supply and sanitation. The social sector development budget consisted of 31 per cent of the total annual development programme in the FY 2016-2017, and more funds are also likely to be earmarked for these sectors.
Special funds are also likely to be earmarked for the Punjab Safe City project, as this project has now been expanded to Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Bahawalpur after Lahore. The project in Lahore will be completed at the cost of Rs12 billion after installing modern CCTV cameras for the security of the metropolitan city, whereas the project in all other cities is likely to be completed by the end of December 2017.
