KP Unveils Over Rs 648 B Budget For Remaining Eight Months Of FY 2018-19, Showing Rs 30 B Surplus

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government of KPK unveiled the budget with an outlay of over Rs 648 billion for the remaining eight months of the ongoing fiscal year 2018-19, showing Rs30 billion surplus with an development outlay of Rs180 billion.

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Oct, 2018 ) :The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government of KPK unveiled the budget with an outlay of over Rs 648 billion for the remaining eight months of the ongoing fiscal year 2018-19, showing Rs30 billion surplus with an development outlay of Rs180 billion.

Delivering the budget speech in the assembly session which met with Speaker KP Assembly Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani in the Chair, Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra said that since uplift of poor segments of the society was top priority of the government, the government has not revised the rate of any provincial tax.

He said we are making concentrated efforts to strengthen taxation recovery system however we will not impose any new tax on people. He said the current revenue receipts are 7.5 pc above Rs603 billion of the outgoing fiscal.

The minister also announced increase of 10 percent ad-hoc relief in salaries and pensions in addition to 50 percent raise in house rent of the provincial government employees in budget 2018-19.

Giving breakup of the provincial receipts, he said the province will obtain from the Federal Government 2018-19 included Rs426 billion from federal Government which also included Rs 360b under the federal taxes and Rs 233 b as royalty oil and gas. Similarly the province will obtained Rs 65 b as net hydel profit including Rs 38 b net profit arrears.

Jhagra said that the own receipts of the province have been pitched at Rs 23.82 b from its taxes and Rs 17.439 billion from not tax sector. As many as Rs 71 billion have been pitched as foreign grant in 2008-19, showing 11pc increase over the outgoing year. The province will generate Rs 45 b showing seven percent increase from other receipts to be generated at the province level. The province will receive Rs 360 billion from the federal divisible pool in addition to Rs 4.33b as one percent of the divisible pool for war on terror.

The provincial finance minister said the province will get Rs25 billion on account of net-profit hydel power arrears. However, over Rs 39 billion had been estimated as outstanding amount under the head of net-profit hydel power. He also announced increase of 10 percent ad-hoc relief in salaries and pensions in addition to 50 percent raise in house rent of the provincial government employees in budget 2018-19.

The budget also envisages hefty funds for major schemes such the BRT project and Sehat Insafprogramme besides other sectors. The budget proposed Rs 79.55 billion for the provincial development projects while Rs 29.34 billion had been put aside for development schemes financed by the district annual development programme.