Sindh to present budget for FY2023-24 today

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the portfolio of Provincial Finance Minister, will present the Sindh budget for the next financial year 2023-24 today, ARY News reported.

In this connection, a meeting of the Sindh cabinet is convened to present the annual budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 and supplementary budget for the year 2022-23 at 11am.

The Provincial Secretary Finance would present the budget proposals for 2023-24 while the chairman planning and development board would present the Annual Development Programme (ADP) details.

According to sources, the provincial government has proposed Rs44bn for health sector, while an amount of Rs12bn has been set for mega projects.

Furthermore, Rs353 billion has been proposed for education sector and RsRs160bn for law and order.

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Ishaq Dar on Friday presented the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2023-24 with a total outlay of Rs14.5 trillion.

Budget 2023-24

Giving details of the federal budget 2023-24, the finance minister for the next year, GDP growth had been budgeted at 3.5 per cent, terming it a “modest target”.

Ishaq Dar said that this budget is “not an election budget” and is focusing on the “elements of the real economy”.

The total expenses’ estimate, Dar said was set at Rs 14.46 trillion out of which, Rs7.3 trillion would be spent on interest payment. He said the budget deficit was expected to remain 6.54pc and the primary balance would be a surplus of 0.4pc to GDP.

The tax collection of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the FY 2024 has been targeted at Rs9.2 trillion out of which the provincial share would be Rs5.276 trillion.

The federal non-tax revenues, he said would be Rs2.963 trillion while total income of the federal government would be Rs6.887 billion.

Ishaq Dar said that an amount of Rs950 billion was being allocated for the development projects under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2023-24.

Apart from this amount, he said an additional amount of Rs 200 billion would also be part of the development budget that would be managed through public private partnership.

He said that for the country’s defence and civil administration, Rs 1.8 trillion and Rs 714 billion would be provided respectively whereas Rs 761 billion had been allocated for payments of pensions of the employees.