ISLAMABAD:The National Assembly on Tuesday passed the Finance Bill 2021, giving legal effect to the budgetary proposals for the next fiscal year.
It was presented by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin. The amendments proposed by the opposition in the finance bill were rejected by the House. Having a total outlay of 8,487 billion rupees, the budget 2021-22 envisages incentives and measures for various sectors to promote business activities and provide relief to the general public.
The federal employees have been granted ten percent ad hoc relief besides ten percent increase in pensions. The minimum wage has been enhanced to twenty thousand rupees per month. The annual PSDP has been increased by forty percent from six hundred and thirty billion rupees to nine hundred billion rupees. One hundred billion rupees have been earmarked for construction of hydro-power dams including Dasu, Diamer Basha, Mohmand and Neelum Jhelum.
The growth target of 4.8 percent has been set for the next fiscal year with tax collection target of 5829 billion rupees. Allocation for Ehsaas program has been enhanced from 210 billion rupees to 260 billion rupees for the next fiscal year. An amount of 682 billion rupees have been earmarked for subsidies which were 430 billion rupees during the outgoing fiscal year.
The budget provides zero rating to export of IT services. Tax relief has been given for locally manufactured cars up to 1000CC whilst various tax exemptions and concessions have also been given to encourage the manufacturing of electric vehicles in the country.
Sixty six billion rupees have been allocated for the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and ten billion rupees for Kamyab Jawan Program. The budget also envisages allocation of 1.1 billion dollars for procurement of anti-covid vaccine. The House will now meet tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11:30 a.m.