LAHORE: The caretaker cabinet in Punjab on Monday approved a Rs2,073 billion budget for the next five months to run the affairs in the province which is witnessing long period of interim setup since the dissolution of provincial assembly on Jan 14 earlier this year.
The meeting was chaired by Caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin as the cabinet members went through the details of non-development and development expenditure as well as sectoral allocations of funds.
Previously, the caretaker government had presented for a four-month period [July-Oct] as there was a confusion on when the elections would be held, necessitating the second instalment of budget.
It is because of the fact that the Article 126 of the Constitution clearly stipulates that the caretaker government may be authorized expenditures for a period not exceeding four months.
That’s why earlier in June, the provincial caretaker government had presented a Rs1,719.3bn budget for first four months of the fiscal year 2023-24.
The document read that Punjab would receive Rs881bn tax receipts from federal government with its own contribution of Rs194bn. At the same time, no new taxes were imposed in the budget while development expenditure allocations stood at Rs325bn.
Later on Monday afternoon, Caretaker Information Minister Amir Mir, addressed a press conference to share the budget details and said the amount reserved for development budget was Rs351bn for the ongoing schemes.
He said the crackdown against foreigner staying illegally in the province would start from Nov 1 and Rs400 million had been reserved for the purpose.
About the upcoming general elections, the Punjab Minister said 50,000 polling stations were being established across the province, as he reiterated the stance that the caretaker government would fully assist the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in holding free and fair polls.