Govt to spend Rs1,001 bn on infrastructure development

Defence budget up by 9.3pc with Rs920.1 bn allocation;
debt servicing to consume Rs1,363 bn

ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar on Friday announced a 40 percent increase in development budget over the next financial year as the government continues to invest in infrastructure projects.

Speaking to parliament, the finance minister said the Public Sector Development Program would have its funding increased from 715 billion rupees ($6.8 billion) to 1,001 billion rupees for 2017-18.

The government also announced an 11 percent hike in total expenditure over the next year, as positive financial indicators and an improving security situation attract more investors to the country.

"The estimate for the total expenditure in the year 2017-18 is 4,753 billion rupees, which is 11.7 percent more than the previous year’s expenditures of 4,256 billion rupees," Dar said.

Reflecting on the government’s growth story over the last four years, the finance minister claimed that the government had turned the economy around. More over the government will spend Rs1,363 billion in debt servicing in fiscal year 2017-18.

As much as Rs920.1 billion has been allocated for defence budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018 showing an increase of 9.3% as compared to revised budget for the last financial year. Last year, the government had announced defence budget of Rs860.1 billion which later was revised to Rs841.4 billion.

Out of the total allocations of Rs920.1 billion (Rs920,166 million) for the coming financial year starting July 01, the major chunk of Rs917.9 billion (Rs917,949 million) would be spent on defence services including employees related expenses, operating expenses, physical assets, civil works etc and remaining Rs 2.2 billion (Rs2,217 million) on defence administration, including employees related expenses, operating expenses, physical assets, civil works etc.

There are separate allocations for Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Navy and Defence Production establishments. The budget allocations for Pakistan Army have been increased to Rs437.5 billion from Rs398.2 billion for the coming financial year.

A major amount of Rs77.8 billion would go to operating expenses and Rs60 billion for physical assets. Similarly, the defence budget for Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shows an increased allocation of Rs195.5 billion from revised estimates of Rs180.2 billion for the year financial year Rs 2016-2017. The major amount of Rs104.3 billion would be spent on physical assets.

The budgetary allocations for Pakistan Navy are increased from revised estimates of Rs90.2 billion to Rs98.8 billion with Rs46.6 billion for physical assets. The allocations for defence production establishments also show an increase from Rs171.1 billion to Rs188 billion.

India’s defence allocations of over 3.5 trillion for fiscal year 2017-2018 are almost four times higher than Pakistan’s defence budget of Rs920 billion. India announced their last budget in March, this year.