Budget: alarm for the economy.

Byline: MUHAMMAD ZEESHAN FARRUKH

The federal budget 2022-23 has been presented with the outlay of Rs 9.5 trillion. The Gross Federal Revenue is estimated at Rs 9 trillion and total expenditure is estimated at 9.5 trillion. The total budget deficit is estimated at Rs 3.8 trillion. The growth target has been set at 5%.

The budget figures show the large dependency of budget upon the foreign loans and taxes. 41.5% of the total budget i.e. Rs 3.95 trillion will be spent on just debt servicing this fiscal year. It means that the large portion of our budget will be eaten by the debt and to tackle the deficit in budget, the nation will get more debt and this process is not expected to an end.

As far as foreign loans are concerned, it is worthy to note that the budget has been presented in the economic condition in which Pakistan is seeking loans from International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet the financial turmoil and bad economic conditions. In this situation, these foreign loans would also increase the debt of Pakistan beside the debt that would be taken in case of expected budget deficit.

It is also to note that in the present economic scenario, IMF is urging government for strict economic conditions against loans i.e. culmination of subsidies, increment in taxation and rise in oil, electricity and gas prices etc. These strict economic conditions are not in the general favor of common people as the tsunami of inflation would come. It seems that the present government is ready to fulfill the demands of IMF on immediate basis due to which the signs of horrible inflation are shown before the nation. According to the present government, the difficult decisions must be taken otherwise Pakistan would go to default.

As far as salaried and pension class is concerned, the salaries of government employees have been raised to 15%. There will be no tax on the salary of Rs 100,000 per month. The tax slabs have also been reduced. The tax on pensioner has been reduced to 5% from 10%. The families with income below Rs 40,000 to be given Rs 2,000. It is very interesting to note that just Rs 2,000 would be given to people whose monthly income is below Rs 40,000. The government can assess the value of just Rs 2,000 in the present economic scenario. It is nothing for a deprived unit of the society. There is a need of proper socio-economic strategy for the deprived segment of the society rather than these useless relief acts in the inflated economy.

In the budget...