Daily Times

The federal government has allocated Rs 4,526.096 million under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for ongoing and new schemes of the Federal Education and Professional Training for the fiscal year 2020-21.

According to the budget documents, a total of Rs 4,171.096 million has been earmarked allocated for ongoing schemes and Rs 355 million new schemes of the Education Ministry.

Among the ongoing schemes, Rs 1,100 million has been allocated for establishment of Directorate General of Religious Affairs (DGRE), Rs 200 million each for setting up Islamabad Model College for Boys G/13-2, and Islamabad College for Boys G-15, Rs 100 million for up-gradation of Islamabad Capital Territory high schools, and Rs 86.800 million for the establishment of National Curriculum Council (NCC) Secretariat.

Among the new schemes, Rs 150 million has been earmarked for introducing Matric-Tech Pathways for Integrating Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Formal Education, Rs 100 million for provision of Leftover Infrastructure in Islamabad Model College for Girls, Bhara Kahu Islamabad, and Rs 60 million for Pilot Project on Improving Recruitment and On-Boarding of Teachers in FDE (Federal Directorate of Education) Schools.

This budget was referred as Corona budget by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh a day earlier while unveiling the economic survey for fiscal 2019-20, was presented by Minster for Industries Hammad Azhar.

Prime Minister Imran Khan also attended the budget session. Azhar started the session by saying it was an honour for him to be presenting the second budget of the PTI government under the leadership of PM Imran.

He then went on to highlight some of the major achievements of the government in the outgoing fiscal year, pointing to a 73 per cent decline in the current account deficit, which is now under $3 billion, he said. “There is also a primary surplus which we achieved in the past nine months,” he said.

In the background of Azhar’s speech, loud slogans against the premier and table thumping by the opposition benches could be heard as the minister highlighted the PTI-led government’s efforts to streamline the economy. Later, the opposition walked out of the House in protest.

He further said that “our budget deficit shrank from 5 percent to 3.8 percent while IMF gave us an extended facility of Rs6 billion and remittances increased from Rs16 billion to Rs17billion”. He also noted that Bloomberg had called PSX the top performing market in December 2019.

Presenting details of the new budget, the minister emphasised that “no new tax was introduced in this budget”. He said the need of the hour was an expansionary fiscal policy which the government was implementing.

According to the budgetary documents the total size of the budget or the total expenditure budget for the next year stood at Rs7,136 billion, slightly higher than the budgeted figure for the previous year. While of this total, current expenditure for the next fiscal year was budgeted at Rs 6,345 billion, up from the Rs6,193b budgeted last year. Of this, Defence Affairs make up Rs1,289 billion, up 11pc from the previous year, with interest payments making up Rs2,946 billion.