Austerity: Prime Minister's Development Projects and Initiatives may get Rs53bn cut
Business
Total amount budgeted amount is Rs80bn, just Rs2bn have been released
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News/Web Desk) – A proposal has been submitted to slash the budget allocated under the Prime Minister’s Development Projects and Initiatives by Rs53 billion, which would be sent to the National Economic Council for further consideration.
The planned move is part of the measures adopted by Pakistan to reduce the budget deficit under the targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the country managed a $3bn stand-by arrangement for a nine-month period, which would expire on March 31.
Slashing government spending through minimising subsidies – which is resulting in energy tariff hikes – and privatisation of lossmaking state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are the main IMF remedies to achieve the goal.
As far as the details of the Prime Minister’s Development Projects and Initiatives is concerned, a total of around Rs2 billion have been released during the first six months – July to December – period of the 2023-24 fiscal year.
The disbursement of paltry amount shows that the caretaker setup didn’t move ahead with the projects announced by the then prime minister Shehbaz Sharif as the coalition government was replaced in early August after presenting the annual budget in June.
A total of nine projects were supposed to funded through this Rs80bn budget, with the lion’s share Rs30bn reserved for transferring agriculture tube wells to solar energy – a move designed to boost to agriculture sector by providing relief to the farmers amid the rising input costs.
On the other hand, Rs10b each were earmarked for two schemes – provision of laptops and small loans – which specifically targeted the youth to enhance their capabilities by human resource development and employment generation.
Meanwhile, Rs5bn each were also allocated under youth skills development project, Pakistan Endowment Fund for Education (PEEF), and the IT Start-up and Venture Capital.
As far as the remaining amount is concerned, Prime Minister’s Development Projects and Initiatives had also focused on sports, “green revolution” and women empowerment. The amount under these heads was also Rs5bn each.
