PESHAWAR: Provincial Minister for Finance Muzaffar Said said on Thursday that the government has presented a balanced and pro-poor budget for 2017-18 in which maximum relief is provided to all segments of the society including government employees and pensioners.
Addressing a post-budget press conference here, the Minister said the government has distributed the budget mainly in three major sectors of development, welfare and administration to ensure strict financial discipline besides expediting the pace of economic development in the province.
The Minister said the government has proposed an allocation of Rs 336.67 billion for welfare budget which is 56 percent of the total budget outlay of Rs603 billion, 14pc higher than the current fiscal year.
Likewise, he said Rs 58.73 billion was proposed for the administrative budget for 2017-18; an increase of 18 percent against current fiscal year.
The Minister also added that special focus was placed on development sector which has been allocated Rs 208 billion, 34 percent of the total budget. Major objectives include the development of socio-economic sectors, completion of ongoing projects and initiation of new schemes.
He said the ADP of the upcoming budget was 29 percent more than the current fiscal year including foreign assistance of Rs82 billion.
Besides, Rs127.91 billion have been allocated for education, Rs 49.27 billion for health and Rs39.73 billion for police departments, he said, adding the government has set aside Rs127.91 billion including Rs115.92 billion for elementary and secondary education, Rs11.99 billion for the high education sector which is 18 percent more than of the current financial year.
As many as Rs 49.27 billion were earmarked for health sector with 31pc increase against current fiscal year, besides an allocation of Rs 1.85 billion marking an increase of seven percent against current fiscal year for women development and social welfare sectors.
The Minister also said that Rs 2.25 billion for Technical Education and Human Resource Development, Rs 720 million for sports, culture and tourism, Rs 4.35 billion for agriculture, Rs 2.37 billion for environment and forests department, Rs 6.61 for communication and works sectors, Rs 53 billion for pension and Rs 2.90 billion for subsidy in wheat were earmarked in the upcoming budget as well.
The government also allocated Rs 8 billion for payment of markup on loans besides Rs 7 billion for returns on external and internal loans, house building for the government employees and motorcycle advances.
The provincial financial Minister said that Rs126 billion were allocated for Provincial Development Programme to complete 1632 projects including 1182 ongoing and 450 news schemes in the budget of 2017-18.
Despite limited financial resources, he said the Government has provided maximum financial relief to government employees and pensioners by increasing their salaries and pension by 10 percent after the merger of Adhoc Relief Allowance of 2010.
“The government has decided to merge ad-hoc relief allowance 2010 in basic salaries and after its merger 10 percent ad-hoc relief allowance 2017 would be given to government employees,” he said.
The Minister said the government would bear a Rs16.50 billion load due to increase in pension and salaries of the government employees.
The employees of BPS-5 are being exempted from a reduction in 5 percent house rent allowance and proposed to increase the rate of daily allowance by 60 percent while Ardali (Orderly Peon/messenger) allowance from Rs12000 to Rs14000.
The existing ratio of transfer and burial of deceased is being enhanced from Rs1600 to Rs4800 and from Rs 5000 to Rs 15000 respectively, he said, whereas minimum wage has been increased from Rs 14000 to Rs15000.
The minister said that PTI-led government has transferred Rs 48 billion to district government in the last two years and a huge amount of Rs 28 billion were allocated for district governments in the budget of 2017-18.
He said revenue resources of KP were limited and the government was making efforts to enhance it.
