PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is to unveil its last budget with a tentative Rs600 billion outlay next week, officials say.

On Friday, the finance department wrote to the provincial assembly secretariat saying the chief minister has approved the holding of the house’s budget session 2017-18 on June 7 and therefore, the session should be convened on that day.

The officials familiar with budget-making process told Dawn that the budgetary proposals had been worked out and a summary had been sent to the chief minister for approval.

The next budget’s tentative outlay is almost Rs100 billion more than the current budget’s i.e. Rs505 billion.

On the revenue side, KP is set to receive Rs389.854 billion from the federal divisible pool, which also makes a major part of the province’s revenue receipts.

At the same time, province’s current expenditure is also projected at close to Rs388 billion, offsetting the province’s federal receipts and further diminishing the already shrinking fiscal space for the development projects.

Of this, around Rs53 billion will go to pension liabilities, while the current expenditure has also gone up to Rs55 billion.

Officials say province to get Rs389.85bn from centre, current expenditure to total Rs388bn

“The increase in the current expenditure is a worrying trend,” an official requesting anonymity said.

The main reason behind the rising tide of the current expenditure is the provincial government’s bourgeoning workforce, which increased from 406,665 personnel in 2014-15 to 468,027 in 2016-17.

The education and health sectors have led with major hiring spree during the last four years as close to 30,000 teachers were hired during past four year, while health department added about 6,889 jobs during the same period.

In addition to this, health department also enhanced health professional allowance for doctors and other professionals, while in 2014-15, the government upgraded around 16,000 clerical employees.

On the other hand, officials at the planning and development (P&D) department said the provincial Annual Development Programme’ outlay is likely to be over Rs208 billion.

The development outlay is around 28 percent more than the current ADP’s i.e. Rs161 billion.

However, officials at the P&D department insist that the little has been changed in the provincial and district component of the ADP, which, like the current year, has been projected at Rs126 billion.

Of this amount, Rs97 billion have been earmarked for the provincial component of the ADP while up to Rs28 billion have been allocated for the development programme’s district component.

However, programme’s foreign component has likely to be increased to the tune of Rs50 billion, which has increase foreign funded component of the ADP to Rs80 billion.

About 81 percent of the development outlay would go the ongoing schemes while only 19 percent has been earmarked for new schemes.

A P&D department official told Dawn that the development outlay was the same as the current one but the Rs50 billion Asian Development Bank funding for the proposed Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit had increased its size.

The details available with Dawn show the proposed development allocation for the elementary and secondary education (E&SE) department is around Rs14.28 billion.

Around 410 primary schools will be set up throughout the province during the next fiscal, while a total of 14,000 teachers will be hired.

Also, Rs6.25 billion has been proposed for 63 projects of the higher education sector, Rs12.23 billion for 101 health schemes, Rs460 million for 33 social welfare projects, Rs14 billion for roads, Rs1.64 billion for 27 industries initiatives, Rs2 billion for 38 forestry projects, Rs2.42 billion for 59 home and tribal affairs department schemes, Rs4.50 billion for local government department projects and Rs2.2 billion for 30 relief and rehabilitation sector initiatives.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2017