Friday, March 29, 2024

NEC approves development budget of Rs2102 billion for next fiscal year

NEC approves development budget of Rs2102 billion for next fiscal year
June 7, 2021

ISLAMABAD (92 News) - The National Economic Council (NEC) has approved a development budget of Rs2102 billion for the next fiscal year 2021-22 with the provinces.

Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan chaired a meeting of the NEC on Monday. The meeting was attended by the chief ministers of the four provinces and other top government officials. The approvals were given to the budgetary targets for the next year.

The NEC has approved the total development outlay worth Rs2.1 trillion for the next financial year. The development outlay includes Rs244 billion for Transport and Communications, Rs118 billion for Energy, Rs91 billion for Water Resources, Rs113 billion for social Sector, Rs100 billion for Regional Equalization, Rs31 billion for Science and Technology & IT Sector, Rs68 billion for SDGs and Rs17 billion for the production sector.

The NEC also approved the GDP growth projections for the next financial year as 4.8 per cent with sectoral growth targets of 3.5 per cent for Agriculture, 6.5 per cent for Industrial Sector, and 4.7 per cent for the Services Sector.

The meeting set federal PSDP at Rs900 billion besides allocated Rs1,202 billion for provincial development projects.

In the Social Sectors, Higher Education Commission has been allocated 42 billion rupees. The NEC meeting was informed that with the operationalization of the Public Private Partnership Authority, a number of PPP projects are also being expeditiously processed for implementation. These include Sukur-Hyderabad Motorway and Sialkot-Kharian Motorway, which are at an advanced stage. While other major projects such as Karachi Circular Railway , Karachi Port Trust-PIPRI Freight Corridor, Kharian – Rawalpindi Motorway, Balkasar – Mianwali Road, Quetta – Karachi - Chaman Highway are also likely to be launched during the year.

For the first time ever, the federal government has made an allocation of Rs61 billion in PSDP for financing the viability gap of PPP projects, to make sure that such projects can be successfully implemented.

On the occasion, addressing the participant, PM Imran Khan emphasized on increasing the pace of implementation of development projects to ensure that the gains made through stabilization of the economy could be translated into economic growth resulting in the well-being of the people of Pakistan.