AJK budget sails through legislative assembly sans debate

MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legisl­ative Assembly on Wednesday hastily passed a Rs232 billion deficit budget, hours after it was presented before the house by Senior Minister for Finance Waqar Noor.

The budget proposes Rs190.047 billion for recurring expenditures and Rs42bn, including foreign aid of Rs2bn, for developmental activities.

The session was convened at 11am, but started more than two- and-a-half hours late, with speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar in the chair.

Mr Noor, who was allotted the portfolio of finance on Tuesday for presentation of the budget, informed the house that the AJK government would generate an income of Rs166.45bn in next fiscal year.

Deficit budget contains Rs190bn for recurring, Rs42bn for development expenditures

This would include Rs44bn from tax revenue, Rs90bn from AJK’s share in the federal variable grant, Rs29.85bn from internal resources, Rs1.7bn from water usage charges and Rs900 million from capital receipts (loans and advances), he said.

However, the minister was silent on how and where the huge Rs23.597bn gap between the inco­­me and expenditure would be met.

As AJK’s entire development budget is provided by the federal government as ‘development grant’, Mr Noor disclosed that though the federal government had earmarked Rs30bn, including Rs2bn foreign component, for AJK’s development budget the latter had however prepared its Annual Development Programme (ADP) to the tune of Rs42bn, including the Rs2bn foreign component.

Here, too, Mr Noor did not specify how the AJK government would generate the additional Rs12bn for its proposed ADP.

He maintained that they had enhanced the volume of development budget to Rs 42bn because “we want to accelerate the pace of development.”

He said the government believed that real progress was not possible without making adequate investment in productive and social sectors, and that’s why it had allocated 14pc and 31pc of ADP for these two sectors, respectively, as against 11pc and 25pc in the current year.

On the other hand, the allocation for infrastructure related sector had been lowered from 66pc in the current year to 55pc in next year, he said.

He informed the house that 60pc funds of development budget would be spared for 361 ongoing projects and 40pc for new projects. By the close of the current year, 91 projects would be completed while a completion target of 165 projects had been fixed for next year, he added.

The finance minister said that the present government was striving to improve the financial condition of its employees, who were the backbone of any government.

Keeping in view its resources, the AJK government would also consider giving increase in pay and pension of its employees, on the pattern of the federal government, he said.

Earlier, when at the outset of his speech the finance minister indicated that he would also move a resolution for suspension of rules to get the budget passed the same day, some members of the minuscule opposition raised objection to it, saying a debate should be held for incorporation of their positive suggestions in the budget.

Opposition lawmakers also staged a walkout on this issue, but they were brought back to the house following some assurances by the prime minister.