Pakistan's development budget gets affected by IMF demands

ISLAMABAD: In order to meet the International Monetary Fund (IMF) target, the development budget of Pakistan is reportedly being affected, ARY News reported on Friday.

According to recent documents, the development budget of Rs 950 billion only Rs 379 billion have been utilized to meet IMF targets this year.

These budget reductions have damaging the various sectors including health, higher education and infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

The already ongoing projects under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) require Rs 9,800 billion, while the federal PSDP proposal is Rs 1,221 billion for the next financial year.

Over the past decade, the federal development budget was averaged at Rs 630 billion. However, this budget has also been affected by a significant decrease in the value of the rupee and rising inflation.

The federal government has indicated that provincial projects place a heavy burden on the budget, resulting in the decline of development budget of GDP from 1.7 percent to 0.9 percent.

These cuts are part of efforts to address the primary deficit.