Staff Reporter
Peshawar
A special meeting of the provincial cabinet was held here on Friday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair. The meeting formally approved budget proposals for financial year 2020-21.
Besides all the cabinet members the meeting was also attended by Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary and Administrative Secretaries of the provincial government. The cabinet also approved proposed austerity measures to overcome the issue of financial constraints being faced by the government due to the prevailing corona situation.
The austerity measures will expectedly make a saving of Rs. 5.00 to 10.00 Billion to the provincial exchequers during the next financial year. These austerity measures include ban on the purchase of new vehicles of 1600 and above CC for government functionaries, foreign training, tours and medical treatment of government officials on public expenses, holding of official workshops and seminars in five star hotels, launching projects involving purchase of new vehicles and creation of new vacancies without the prior approval of the Finance Department, expenditure against the expected supplementary grants, cuts on non-salary components of current budget and ban on new hiring without obtaining NOC from surplus pool.
However, ban on new hiring will not apply to recruitments against the newly created positions for newly merged districts. All the autonomous and semi autonomous bodies will also be bound to adopt these austerity measures.
The cabinet was given a detail briefing on various aspects of the budget including the annual development program, budget estimates, revenue targets, finance bill and supplementary budget etc. The cabinet was informed that the total volume of the new budget was to the tune of Rs.923 Billion whereas revenue target for the next financial year was set at Rs. 49 Billion.
Expressing his views on this occasion, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan termed the budget as a balanced and best one in the prevailing scenario and said that neither any new tax had been levied and nor the rates of the existing taxes have been increased in the budget.
He said that major chunk of the upcoming Annual Developmental Program had been allocated for the completion of ongoing and due for completion schemes adding that more than 600 ongoing developmental schemes will be completed during the next financial year.
Mahmood Khan directed the provincial ministers and administrative secretaries of all the departments for result oriented steps to ensure the completion of all the due for completion schemes of their respective departments within the next financial year and to show physical progress in this regard as per the given timelines.
