Balochistan govt unveils Rs930 billion budget for FY-2024-25

Balochistan’s Provincial Finance Minister Mir Shoaib Nausherwani unveils Rs25 billion surplus budget for the next financial year 2024-25 with a total outlay of Rs930 billion, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The total revenue was estimated at Rs955 billion while 564 billion rupees were allocated for non-developmental expenses. According to the document, the size of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the province was estimated at Rs321 billion rupees.

The provincial government was estimated to obtain 667 billion rupees from a divisible pool from the centre and the province's income was estimated at Rs124 billion.

According to the document, Rs138.40 billion were allocated for General Public Service and Rs93.12 billion were set aside for law and order in the province.

Around 79.36 billion rupees have been allocated to the Finance department. And 900 million have been allocated for environmental protection and Rs49.92 billion for housing and community facilities. And Rs57.12 billion have been kept for the health sector.

An amount of Rs6 billion has been set for entertainment and tourism, culture and religious affairs.

Balochistan’s Finance Minister said Rs126.2 billion have been earmarked for the education sector and Rs13.3 billion rupees have been set aside for the social security sector.

He further said the provincial government has allocated Rs8.65 billion for repayment of loans.

Finance Minister Mir Shoaib Nausherwani said Rs13 billion have been kept for pension. Rs219 billion have been allocated for the development projects from the budget. While the estimate of foreign-funded development projects was set at over Rs28 billion rupees. The federal development projects were estimated at 73.28 billion rupees.

Around 2,704 new development projects have been included in the budget. The number of ongoing schemes in the budget is 3,976. The cost of federal projects has been included in the provincial budget resultantly the volume of the budget has been shown to 930 billion rupees. The federal government's budget size was overstated by adding Rs 73 billion for projects in Balochistan.

Reporter: Essa Tareen