‘Punjab to achieve revenue targets’

LAHORE
Punjab Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha has said the provincial budget has been prepared carefully keeping in view the mid-term growth strategy assuring the masses that there is no chance of lapse in revenue targets.
She said this while addressing a post budget conference on Saturday. “Now we are moving from consolidation to growth”, she said adding it was imperative that the Punjab created at least one million jobs a year to absorb the labour force that entered the job market. “We aim to engage even the women who usually sit back at home”, she said adding the women would be empowered with skills to ensure that they were gainfully employed.
To a question about the creation of jobs in energy starved province, she said that jobs in the short-term would come from the development programmes of both provincial and federal governments. Power situation, she added, would gradually improve and boost the private sector investment and create further jobs. She said Punjab would have to grow at a rate of 7-8 percent to ensure equitable and sustained growth.
She said the provincial government was actively engaging the private sector in its development programmes. She said currently three public-private projects had been approved and work had started in all the said projects. There are 20 PPP projects in pipeline, she said adding the government needs private sector participation in the development projects to improve infrastructure in the shortest time.
She said skill particularly demand based skills would be imparted on the unemployed youth to enable them to live respectably and attain the higher productivity.