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Friday March 29, 2024

KP unveils Rs1,118.3 bn budget

By Nisar Mahmood
June 19, 2021
KP unveils Rs1,118.3 bn budget

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa budget for the fiscal year 2021-22 with a total outlay of Rs1,118.3 billion was unveiled here on Friday which included Rs919 billion for the settled and Rs199.3 billion for the merged districts.

Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra presented the budget, suggesting Rs371billion allocations for development i.e. Rs270.7 billion for the settled and Rs100.3 billion for the merged tribal districts, which is 10 percent higher than the last year's budget allocation.

The budget suggestions included 37 percent pay raise for government employees (10 percent ad hoc relief for all employees, 20 percent functional or sectoral allowance for those not getting any allowance and 7 percent raise in house rent). Ten percent increase was suggested in pension and 100 raise proposed for widow pensioners.

The finance minister said reforms were being introduced by reducing upper age limit for retirement to 55 years or 25 years of service to minimize the pension burden, which has increased by 100 percent since 2003-4 from one percent to 13.8 percent.

The reforms would save Rs12 billion annually, he said, adding by introducing changes in pension rules through reducing the number of pensioners to only widows, parents and children of the deceased the government would save one billion rupees annually.

In the budget, the minimum wage was fixed at Rs21,000 per month while Rs10 billion was allocated for subsidy on wheat besides introducing a 'food basket' for the poor with the allocation of Rs10 billion.

What the minister called a Rs500 billion plus budget suggested allocations of Rs424 billion for service delivery out of Rs747 billion spending on doctors, nurses, teachers' salaries and provision of medicines in hospitals and fuels for Rescue 1122 ambulances.

For the construction of 3000 kilometers roads in the province including Peshawar-DI Khan motorway, Swat motorway Phase-II, Chakdarra-Dir motorway, Peshawar-Torkham Motorway, Northern bypass, Haripur bypass, Bannu Circular Road, Tall-Mir Ali road, Bannu-Ghulam Khan road and Karakar tunnel allocation of Rs48. 2 billion has been suggested.

While the allocations for completion of projects like Arbab Niaz, Hayatabad and Kalam cricket stadiums, motorsports arena, Hund Water Park, rehabilitation and renovation of Dilip Kumar's house and Raj Kapoor's Haveli and Madaklasht chairlift have been increased to Rs12 billion from two billion.

Major allocations in the budget included Rs25.522 billion for agriculture, Rs205,896 for primary and secondary education, Rs17.253 for power and energy, Rs142. 231 for health, Rs41.811 for environment, Rs91.709 for home department, Rs58.789 for communication and works, Rs27.056 for higher education, Rs19.945 for irrigation, Rs37.861 for local governments, Rs12.585 for Law and Justice department, Rs44.032 for planning and development, Rs18.803 for public health engineering, Rs29.132 for rehabilitation, Rs21.886 for revenue and estates, Rs20.550 for sports and tourism and Rs12.213 for transportation, besides allocations for other departments.

The minister said 2100 plus schools would be constructed or upgraded and repaired while 20,000 teachers would be recruited in the settled and 3000 in merged districts.

He said 30 colleges would be given the status of premier colleges through the provision of latest facilities and 40 more colleges would be completed during the current year besides provision of furniture and repair with a total allocation of Rs1,000 million.

The budget suggestions also included waiver of professional tax, agricultural tax, admission fee for government schools, reduction of the small vehicle registration fee to just one rupee and free of cost re-registration fee, reduction of property tax for those who regularly pay taxes.

The sources of revenue reflected in the budget included Rs475.6 billion from federal tax revenue, Rs57.2 billion on account of one percent divisible pool for combatting terrorism, Rs26.6 billion direct royalty and surcharge on oil and gas, Rs74.7 billion hydel net profit, Rs75 billion provincial tax and non-tax revenue, Rs85 billion foreign aid for settled, Rs3.3 billion for merged districts, Rs187.7 billion grant for merged districts and Rs132 billion from other heads.