Punjab cabinet approves Rs5,335bn budget

Lahore: The provincial cabinet meeting was held under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister, Maryam Nawaz, in which the cabinet approved a budget of Rs5,335 billion for the next fiscal year.

In the budget meeting of the cabinet, it was approved to increase the salaries of government employees by 10 percent and pensions by 5 percent. It was also approved to allocate Rs1,240 billion by increasing the development budget by 47.2 percent.

The cabinet approved an increase of 21.2 percent in the education budget to Rs811.8 billion for the next fiscal year, a 17 percent increase in the health budget to Rs630.5 billion, and an increase of 10.7 percent to Rs129.5 billion for agriculture.

The budget proposes Rs171.7 billion for foreign-funded projects. The volume of ongoing expenditure will remain at Rs2,026.7 billion. The service delivery expenditure has been reduced by 5.8 percent to Rs679.8 billion, and the transfer of Rs934.2 billion to local governments has been approved.

The FBR target has been set at Rs14,131 billion, Punjab’s share at Rs4,062.2 billion, Punjab’s revenue target has been set at Rs828.1 billion, the tax collection target at Rs524.7 billion, and non-tax revenue at Rs303.4 billion.

The revenue target of the Punjab Revenue Authority has been increased by 13 percent to Rs340 billion, and the target for urban movable property tax has been set at Rs32.5 billion.

The cabinet approved the budget proposal to increase the estimated budget surplus to Rs740 billion, target subsidy to Rs72.3 billion, and the revenue target of the Punjab Board of Revenue to Rs105 billion.