KARACHI: Senior Sindh Minister for Finance, Planning, Development, Agriculture and Energy Syed Murad Ali Shah will present Rs870 billion provincial budget for the next fiscal year, with a deficit of Rs12 to Rs15 billion.
The estimated budget includes federal components in the form of grants, foreign loans, education support programme and state transfers including Rs547 billion from federal divisible pool and Rs165 billion from provincial duty receipts.
In the new budget, Rs236 billion has been allocated for the provincial development programme and Rs65 billion for the expenditures of local government institutions and Rs10 billion special package for Karachi and Rs6 billion allocation for K-IV water project from its share amount. Besides, over Rs12 billion was proposed in the budget for providing 40,000 jobs in different government departments including 20,000 jobs in police.
The Sindh government is expected to receive Rs802 billion through federal grants, loans, education support fund and other federal transfers; Rs79 billion from provincial taxes, Rs64 billion from general sales tax, agri-income tax, property tax, stamp duty, infrastructure and from other duties and Rs22 billion from indirect taxes.
The Sindh government is likely to receive Rs560 billion including Rs480 billion from divisible pool, revenue assignments; Rs68 billion from direct state transfers and Rs12 billion against octroi and district taxes. Sources said the province would get Rs52 billion from revenue and other taxes while Rs78 billion was expected from sales tax on services which was Rs17 billion more from this year’s target of Rs61 billion. Likewise, additional income of Rs100 billion was expected from other sources.
In the coming financial year, the revenue expenditure is estimated to be around Rs560 billion which is Rs59 billion more than the current estimates of Rs501 billion.
The sources said that Rs164 billion -Rs13 billion for development and Rs151 billion non-development budget- was proposed for the education sector. They said for the health sector, Rs79 billion was proposed including Rs14 billion for development. For law and order, they added, Rs80 billion was proposed which was more than 22 per cent from the current budget allocation.
An amount of Rs32 billion was proposed for the irrigation sector including Rs12.78 billion for development work. For the agriculture sector, Rs17.13 billion was proposed including Rs12.78 billion for development work. For works and services department, Rs26.09 billion would be allocated including Rs11.50 billion for development work.
In the new budget revenue expenditure is estimated to be Rs560 billion which is Rs59 billion more than the revised estimates of the current year’s Rs501 billion in which Rs125.5 billion was for ongoing development schemes while Rs31.5 billion for new development schemes, according to the sources.
The total development outlay would be around Rs260 billion, which included Rs200 billion provincial annual development programme and Rs25 billion for the district ADP.
