Budget 2020-21: No new taxes as Sindh presents Rs1.24tr budget.

Byline: Tahir Siddiqui

KARACHI -- Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the finance portfolio, presented a Rs1,241.13 billion budget with a deficit of Rs18.38bn for the financial year 2020-21 in the provincial assembly on Wednesday.

Among the notable figures of the Sindh budget was a 10 per cent across the board increase in the salary of government employees up to grade 16 and five per cent increase in the salary of officials above grade 17.

In his budget speech amid a noisy protest by opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Grand Democratic Alliance, the chief minister said that no new tax had been introduced in the budget 2020-21 and the increase in non-development expenditure was restricted to seven per cent only.

Mr Shah said development expenditure was estimated at Rs232.94bn, non-development expenditure at Rs968.99bn, and capital expenditure at Rs39.19bn.

The chief minister said the total revenue receipts were estimated at Rs1,222.75bn, including federal receipts at Rs760.30bn (65 per cent), provincial receipts at Rs313.39bn (26.8pc), capital receipts at Rs25bn (2.1pc) and other receipts at (FPA and PSDP) Rs69.05bn (5.9pc).

He said the increase in non-development expenditure was mainly due to the provision of Covid-19-related pro-poor 'Social Protection and Economic Sustainability' package of Rs34.2bn and increase of Rs19bn in the health sector and Rs22.9bn in the education sector from the current year's budget allocations.

The CM said...