Khyber Pakhtunkhwa unveils surplus budget of Rs1,754bn for 2024-25

PESHAWAR: (Web Desk) The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has unveiled a surplus budget of Rs1,754 billion for the fiscal year 2024-25.
The budget session started two hours late which was presided by Speaker Babar Saleem Swati.
Finance Minister Aftab Alam presented the budget in the attendance of KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.
Starting his speech, the minister said the people had given a clear mandate to the PTI in the belatedly held election.
Mentioning the policies implemented by the PTI, he said the party had fulfilled the promise of providing fair and accessible health facilities to the people, increased the number of schools, colleges and universities and introduced various programmes to improve the quality of education.
The minister highlighted that the projects of PTI had put the economy on the path of development.
As it is the first duty of the government to provide affordable and quality health facilities to the people, a great attention has been paid in this regard.
“Under the NFC award, the annual share of the merged districts is Rs262 billion and the province gets less than its fair share every year,” he said.
Alam said it had also been proposed to introduce fixed sales tax rate for marriage halls but in the meanwhile, a big relief had been given in terms of property tax.
He added it had been proposed to increase the property tax per kanal from Rs10,000 to Rs10,600.
“The income of tobacco is going to the federal government instead of the province which is the right of the latter after the 18th amendment.”
According to the budget document, the budget of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has a surplus of Rs100 billion as the whole budget is more than Rs16,00 billion and more than Rs600 billion have been allocated for salaries in the budget.
On its share from the centre, the KP government is expected to get Rs1,212 billion from the federal government which includs the share of the erstwhile FATA region.
According to the document, the province would collect Rs93 billion from its own resources with the tax target set at Rs63 billion.
The share of the merged districts is estimated at Rs72 billion and Rs55 billion are also expected to be received from the federal government in the form of additional grants.
According to the document, it has been proposed to allocate Rs34 billion for health facility card and Rs26 billion for the wheat subsidy.
It has been proposed to allocate Rs9 billion for providing free books to students while Rs3 billion for the subsidy of BRT.
Meanwhile, Rs2.5 billion have been proposed for relief activities and Rs12 billion for Ehsaas Rozgar, youth programme, and Rs3 billion for Ehsaas Apna programme under which 5,000 houses would be constructed.