Ministers pledge pro-people budget in Balochistan

Claim that no new taxes will be imposed

QUETTA: No new taxes will be imposed in Balochistan’s budget for the coming fiscal year, said provincial ministers at a pre-budget seminar here on Saturday. They promised that the budget for the fiscal year 2017-18 would be pro-masses.



Prominent among those who spoke at the seminar were Minister for Agriculture and Adviser to the Chief Minister on Finance Sardar Aslam Bizenjo, Minister for Planning and Development Dr Hamid Achakzai, Minister for Education Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal, Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti and Chief Minister’s Adviser on Forestry and Wildlife Ubaidullah Babat.

The ministers expressed the hope that next year’s budget deficit would be around Rs30 billion and high priority would be given to education, health and law and order sectors.



According to the ministers, the province is likely to get Rs220 billion as its share in federal revenue while it expects to raise Rs12 billion from its own resources. The non-development expenditure is likely to be 73 per cent of the budget and 26 per cent of the budgetary allocations will be spent on development schemes.

They said funds had also been set aside for establishing Balochistan’s own bank in addition to creating endowment funds for pensioners.