52 schemes in KP delayed as centre slashes development budget

PESHAWAR: The federal government slashed the development budget, leaving 52 projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) without funds, ARY News reported.

According to official documents available with ARY News, the current financial year has seen no release of funds for 52 projects in the province.

The 94 development projects currently underway in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been delayed due to the lack of timely funds. The total cost of these projects is estimated to be around Rs. 911.5 billion.

For the current financial year, a development budget of Rs. 49.74 billion was allocated for these 94 projects. However, only Rs. 6.29 billion have been released for 42 projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to official documents, 15 development projects of the NAH have been left without funds. Similarly, two uplift projects of Communication Division, three schemes of Establishment Division and nine development projects of Housing and Works Division have been affected.

A project to search for uranium reserves in Bannu and Kohat has been left without funds, despite an allocation of Rs. 300 million.

Meanwhile, several projects of Information and Interior Division, Power Division; Railways, Revenue, Science and Technology, and Water Resources Divisions have been affected.

Earlier, Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made ‘significant’ progress in their negotiations as no mini-budget would be introduced by the federal government

“Pakistan’s tax collection target of Rs 12.97 trillion will remain unchanged, and no mini-budget is expected,” the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) sources said. They added that the IMF expressed satisfaction with tax reforms being taken by the Pakistani government.

According to sources, the FBR will not impose the general sales tax (GST) on petroleum products.

Meanwhile, the FBR sources said that Tax-to-GDP ratio has been improved from 8.8 percent to 10.3 percent while Rs 12 billion taxes are collected from retailers in three months. They added that 400,000 new traders have filed tax returns and the number of registered traders is increased from 200,000 to 600,000.