Sindh announces deficit budget for FY 2016-17

Syed Murad Ali Shah said that total revenue expenditure is estimated to grow by 13.8 percent to 572.76 billion rupees in the next financial year.

Deficit Budget

He said the receipts of province for the financial year 2016-17 with 17.61 percent increase over current budget estimate of 726.57 billion rupees are estimated 854.50 billion rupees-14.5 billion lesser than the total budget estimates.

He said the receipts from federal divisible pool of taxes comprising 67.8 percent of total tax and non-tax receipts of province are estimated 493.2 billion rupees.

He said that the provincial budget focuses on revenue and employment generation, agriculture development and development of rural as well as urban areas.

Annual Development Programme

The finance minister said that Rs 224 billion have been allocated for the annual development programme in the next fiscal year budget. Additional Rs 50 billion have been allocated for development budget of the province.

Tax revenue target in the province has been set up at Rs 154 billion. Rs 80 billion have been allocated for law and order and 42 billion rupees for the local government.

Agriculture allocation

Additional Rs 6.7 billion allocated for agriculture, while Rs 18.7 billion allocated for the irrigation department.

Raise in salaries and pensions

In the new provincial budget 10 percent adhoc raise has been proposed in the salaries and pensions of the government employees and retired employees. The budget also proposes up-gradation of various scale employees. Minimum wage in the province has been increased to 14,000 from existing 13,000 rupees.

Education Sector

Rs 164 billion have been earmarked for education including 151 billion rupees for non-development and 13 billion rupees for development expenditure.

Some key projects will be launched in the education sector including Memon Goth Engineering College in Karachi, 25 O-Level schools and 25 Comprehensive Schools.

Health Sector

In the fiscal year 2016-17 budget 79 billion rupees have been proposed to be allocated for the health sector including 65 bln rupees for non-development and 14 billions for development expenses. Seven Taluka hospitals will be upgraded in the province.

Karachi Mega Projects

In the Annual Development Programme Rs. 50.5 bln rupees have been earmarked for over a dozen mega projects in Karachi division including K-4 water project, S-3, Orange Line bus project and a number of flyovers and underpasses.

Water, Power and Gas Projects

Sindh Government has allocated Rs. six billion for K-4 water project. Rs 10 billion amount has been allocated for water supply schemes in Thar Coal Fields.

Budget has also been earmarked for installation of 50 ROs in Thar. Rs 2.75 billion has been allocated for various power and gas supply schemens in villages.

New Jobs and Police recruitment

The minister also announced that the province will recruit 50,000 government employees in the next fiscal year apartment of recruitment of 20,000 policemen. Rs 83.3 billion have been allocated for the law and order increasing the budget for law and order by 14.4 pct in comparison to the ongoing financial year.

Sindh cabinet in a meeting on Friday approved the budgetary proposals. Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah signed the finance bill for the fiscal year 2016-17.

The members of opposition political parties in the Sindh Assembly met before the budget session on Saturday to chalk out their strategy for the budget debate.

Murad Ali Shah continued his budget speech amid opposition members slogans forcing the finance minister to be silent amid the budget speech.

The opposition leaders earlier criticized the government and said that the Sindh government has failed to spend the budget allocations and only spent around 40 percent of the development budget in the current financial year reflecting the inefficiency and non-serious attitude of the provincial administration towards the people of Sindh.