The Punjab government is set to present an over-ambitious budget for the fiscal year 2011-12 with an Annual Development Programme (ADP) outlay of over Rs 200 billion, sources told Pakistan Today on Wednesday.Following the federal government’s lead, the provincial government will also increase the salaries and pensions of its officials, while there will be no new taxes in the budget, but an increase in some of the existing taxes.
Sources said that the provincial government would claim that it had presented one of the biggest ADPs in Punjab’s history, hence it was a “public-friendly” budget, but in reality there would not be enough funds available for development. In the financial year 2010-11, Punjab announced Rs 193 billion for ADP but later revised it to Rs 131.59 billion. Interestingly, because of lack of funds the government only provided Rs 98 billion and Rs 49 billion were spent on the ADP.
All the emphasis in the budget is on fulfilling the “dreams” of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, such as the Daanish School System, land development schemes and building housing projects, and other sectors such as conventional schooling, hospitals and civic utilities would be ignored, said the sources. The province would receive around Rs 450 billion to Rs 470 billion from the National Finance Commission (NFC), while it would collect Rs 102 billion through its own taxes, they added. Looking at the financial position of the province, such a large ADP did not seem likely to be implemented and would be revised once it served its purpose of labelling the budget “people-friendly”, said a senior official of the Punjab government, adding that this year the provincial government had failed to come up with any solid budget and was depending on hollow claims. He said the mismanagement of Shahbaz Sharif’s government could be seen from the fact that no one was sure who would present the budget.
Another senior official said the provincial government was not in a position to increase the salaries and pensions of its employees, but had to because the federal government had increased the salaries of its employees. “Earlier, there was a proposal for not increasing salaries and pensions of provincial government employees but now the Punjab government will give a raise of around 15 percent,” an official of the Punjab Finance Department said on condition of anonymity.
Sources said there would be no new taxes but the government would increase currently imposed taxes. “The property and token taxes would be increased by around five to 15 percent. However, there is no plan to tax houses smaller than five marlas,” the sources claimed, adding that the property tax would be increased depending upon the location and size of the land. The government would provide around Rs 2 billion for the Public Land Development Company while emergency services would get around Rs 2.5 billion. In the education sector, the government would give all attention to Daanish Schools while the rest of the education system would get nothing significant. “Daanish Schools are Shahbaz Sharif’s dream, therefore no one could dare to ignore them,” said an official.
