Beside retirement benefits, 42.5 percent or 509.732 billion are being spent as employees’ related expenses – post-budget press conference
Sindh Courier
Karachi
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah disclosed here on Wednesday that his government was working on a scheme to introduce a new pension plan.
Addressing the post-budget press conference he said the burden of Rs174.229 billion of employees’ retirement benefits is huge on the provincial exchequer and needs to be controlled.
The provincial government is spending 14.5 percent or Rs.174.229 billion on employees Retirement Benefits, 12.3 percent or Rs.147.449 billion as operating expenses and 42.5 percent or 509.732 billion as employees’ related expenses, he told.
Shah said that the next year’s Rs1.73 trillion budget has 69.9 percent or Rs1.199 trillion Current Revenue Expenditures, 3.18 percent or Rs54.5 billion Current Capital Expenditures and 26.8 percent or Rs459.65 billion development expenditures.
“The Current Revenue Expenditures (CRE) of Rs1.199 trillion could not be termed as non-development expenditures but it has 2.9 percent or Rs35.360 billion repair and maintenance (R&M) budget which itself is part of development budget,” he said and added the CRE has also 21.4 percent or Rs256.605 billion grants for educational, health institutions and for procurement of buses for BRT routes and subsidies for social protection and right-off loans.
Shah said that the non-development expenditures would not be more than 60 percent of the total budget but even then his government was trying to control them.
To a question, the chief minister said that his government was preparing a policy to offer registration of electric vehicles free of cost. “The POL prices are increasing day by day, therefore our government is planning to offer free registration of Electric vehicles as an incentive,” he said and added he would announce the policy once it was approved by the cabinet.
On a question, the chief minister said that the 40 percent POL quota of the government officers has been curtailed keeping in view the 40 percent increase in POL prices. “The POL allowance of the officers is the same in terms of money, but the commodity price has increased by 40 percent which means they [officers] would be able to purchase 40 percent less POL from their allowance,” he elaborated.
The chief minister, replying to a question said that the total development outlay for Karachi in 2022-23 was Rs.125 billion.
He told that single line grants amounting to Rs66.151 billion would be given to different institutes, trusts and NGOS.
The chief minister said that we have a 65 percent population of youth upto 35 years of age. “Therefore, we have decided to establish universities or campuses of university in every district so that they could impart technical education,” he said and added his government was going to announce a five-year IT policy.
Shah announced that he has given 100 percent allocation to the projects of universities/campuses so that they could be completed within one or two years. He added that Thar Technical institute was already working in Thar and it would be made a full-fledged university during the next financial year.
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