Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said the government had approved Rs 1,100 billion development budget for the upcoming fiscal year aimed at achieving the required goals of economic growth.
Addressing a news conference here, he said out of the total budget, Rs 950 billion would be utilized under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP 2023-24) and Rs 150 billion under the public-private partnership to execute different development schemes.
Initially, he said, the Finance Ministry had proposed Rs 700 billion for the PSDP 2023-24 which were extremely insufficient. “So we made a written request to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to increase the amount of development budget to achieve the economic growth, and the PM has approved Rs 1,100 billion development budget.”
In 2018, the minister said, he had presented a development budget of Rs 1,000 billion, and when the incumbent government came into power last year its size came down to Rs 550 billion. “Now after a period of five years there will be a development budget of Rs 1,100 billion, which reflects our priority for the national development.”
Today, he said, the country was facing economic difficulties all because of the failed policies of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, which during its last year allowed $ 84 billion import of luxury items and obliged friends for showing artificial growth, but the trade deficit mounted to $ 50 billion.
“It was the turning point that pushed the country into the severe economic crisis that has eaten away all the foreign exchange reserves,” he added.—APP
