NUT (WEB DESK)
The Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin , unveiled the national budget 2021-22 of Rs 8trillion in the National Assembly.
He started his budget speech by stating that the biggest challenge for the incumbent government this year was to fix the national economy back on the track of recovery.
Salient Features of Budget 2021-22 include:
- No new taxes on salaried persons
- 10 percent increase in salaries and pensions of the government employees
- Rs260bn for Ehsaas Program
- Tax collection target set at Rs5829bn
- The remittances with the 25% increase, reached $29 bn in fiscal year 2020.
- GDP growth target has been set at 4.8%
- Development budget has been increased from Rs630bn to Rs900bn
- 4 to 6 million families will be given loans of up to Rs500,000
- Rs57 billion have been fixed for the first phase of the Dasu Hydro Project.
- Rs23 billion reserved for Diamer Bhasha Dam.
- Rs6 billion earmarked for Mohmand Dam and Rs 14 billion have been proposed for Neelum Jhelum Project.
- Rs100 billion for the development of underprivileged areas
- Rs30 billion earmarked for health, Rs 44 billion for higher education, Rs16 billion for sustainable growth
- Rs601 billion for the development of South Balochistan through 199 uplift projects
- US$1.1 billion would be spent on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccine. 100 million people to be vaccinated by June 2022.
- Rs20 billion have been reserved for PIA and Rs16bn for the Pakistan Steel Mills in the budget.
- Rs98 billion for Karachi Transformation Plan from PSDP and Rs 125 billion from Supreme Court fund.
- Rs9.3 billion for ML-1 project and Rs12 billion allocated for Hyderabad-Sukkur transmission line.
- Provincial share in the federally collected taxes stands at Rs3,411 billion. Provinces share in NFC increased, to receive an extra Rs707bn.
- Rs14 bn allocated for the Billion Tree Tsunami project.
- HEC to get Rs66 billion besides an allocation of Rs44 billion for uplift projects
- Rs 5 billion allocated for fresh local bodies election
- Rs5 billion earmarked for holding fresh census in the country
- The withholding taxes on mobile services lowered from 12.5 percent to 10 percent
- ‘Meri Gari scheme’ launched. Custom, regulatory duty abolished from 800CC vehicles. Vehicles having old models and manufacturing dates exempted from advance custom duty.
- Telecom sector gets the status of industry. 10-year tax exemption for special technology zone authority
- Custom duty from vaccine and medicines of livestock abolished
- Tariff exemptions on some ingredients of poultry feed
- Sugar included in third schedule of sales tax act, helping in the elimination of artificial hike in prices of the commodity
- Federal Excise Duty on telecommunication was reduced from 17 percent to 16 percent besides imposing FED on telephone calls and using the internet for over three minutes. The FED is also imposed on mobile messaging.
- Tax exemption on paper used for Quran publication, auto-disable syringe and oxygen cylinders
- Exemption announced on payments through bank cards for purchases besides elimination of FED on electric vehicles, completely knocked down (CKD) parts and kits.
While addressing the National Assembly today, Tarin said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government inherited a crumbling economy that forced the government to take tough decisions.
“PM Khan took out the ill economy from the ICU with his difficult decisions,” he said that the Prime Minister Imran Khan is not afraid of making the tough decisions.
Sharing the achievements of the incumbent government, the Minister said that tax collections saw an 18 percent increase last year as the country crosses the limit of Rs4000 tax collection.
“We have made 75 percent more tax refunds,” he said.
Earlier, the federal cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Imran Khan approved the Budget for 2021-22, giving a nod to a 10 percent increase in salaries and pensions of the government employees.
With an increase of 36.4%, the federal government has proposed Rs900 billion for the development budget for the fiscal year 2021-22.
As per the budget 2021-22 document, the annual development budget for Punjab has been fixed at Rs500 billion for the upcoming fiscal year 2021-22 after an increase of Rs190 billion.
The budget allocated for development during current fiscal year is Rs310 billion. For Sindh, the development budget has been fixed at Rs321 billion for FY22 as compared to the current year’s Rs194 billion. The provincial budget for uplift schemes has been increased by Rs127 billion.
With an increase of Rs44 billion, the federal government has fixed Rs133 billion for Balochistan’s development. The development budget of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has been decreased by Rs26 billion and has been fixed at Rs248 billion as compared to the current year’s budget for uplift schemes of Rs274 billion.
Moreover, the federal government has projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate at 4.8% for the upcoming fiscal year 2021-22.
According to the budget document, the agriculture sector growth rate has been set at 5 per cent and for important crops, the growth rate has been forecast at 2.2%.
The growth rate for cotton has been proposed at 10% of the overall GDP projected by the federal government for the upcoming fiscal year, read the budget document.
For the industrial sector, the growth rate has been set at 6.5 per cent and 6.2% has been estimated for the manufacturing sector.
It is pertinent to be stated here that the growth target for the large manufacturing sector has been proposed at six percent, while for the construction sector it has been projected up to 8.3 percent.
