Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf presented their first federal budget since taking over the government. The total outlay of the budget was Rs. 7.022 trillion for the Fiscal Year of 2019-20, registering growth of 30 percent against the revised budget of Rs 5.385 trillion for the current fiscal year (2018-19).
In the assembly, the minister said that total federal revenues have been estimated at Rs 6.717 trillion which is 19 percent higher than the previous year’s revenues of Rs 5.661 trillion. The collection of revenues by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), he said are estimated to be recorded at Rs 5.555 trillion which are 12.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The austerity-oriented budget, approved by the cabinet, has proposed a 10 percent cut in ministers salaries and a subsidy worth 40 billion Pakistani rupees (the US $2.6 million) on gas and electricity. However, the salaries of government employees and the pension of retired ones will get a 10 percent hike.
The PTI government has also increased the minimum wage to Rs17500. The conveyance of disabled persons has been increased to Rs2000 from Rs1000 while special allowance of private secretaries attached with ministers and parliamentary secretaries has been enhanced to 25 percent. The defense expenditure will be maintained at 1150 billion rupees. Higher Education Commission (HEC) has been allocated an amount of over 28,646 million rupees for the ongoing and new schemes in the next fiscal year. He said a sum of Rs45.5 billion will be spent on nine development projects in Karachi.
The National Assembly on Friday approved the Budget for the Fiscal Year 2019-20 after more than two weeks since it was presented by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government on June 11 with a total outlay of Rs7.02 trillion.
