LAHORE – The Punjab government on Monday announced Rs1719.3 billion budget for the first four months of the upcoming fiscal year (July-October) with a development outlay of Rs325 billion.
Earlier, the cabinet approved the budget under section 126 of the constitution in the meeting chaired by caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi.
Giving details of the budget along with caretaker minister for industries SM Tanveer and government high ups, caretaker minister for information Amer Mir said that no new tax has been levied on any sector while existing taxes have been abolished on the IT sector.
Mir said that the province will get Rs881 as share in revenue from the federal government while it will generate 194 b from own resources. He said that Rs721b has been allocated for payment of salaries. He said that 50 per cent of the ongoing development projects will be completed in the first four months of the fiscal year.
The government has given 30 per cent ad hoc relief in salaries of the government employees. Retired employees have been given 5 per cent raise while those above 80 years would get 20 per cent increase in their pensions.
Allocations for for education and health have been increased by 31 per cent.
As many as Rs195.1 billion has been allocated for education, Rs183.7b for health, Rs 70 billion for targeted social protection, Rs120.4 b for service delivery expenditures, Rs47.6b for agriculture initiatives and Rs1b for journalists endowment fund.
As many as Rs 16 billion has been earmarked to make power plant functional that was closed in 2017.
Stamp duty on transfer of properties has been fixed at 1 per cent for promotion of construction sector.
