The Sindh Budget

The Rs 267.764 billion Sindh budget for the fiscal year 2008-09, presented by Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah in the Sindh Assembly on Monday, shows a revenue deficit of Rs 14.019 billion, total outlay of around Rs 33.274 billion higher than the current fiscal's revised budget estimates of Rs 234.49 billion.
Presenting the budgetary proposals, the Chief Minister made no secret of this in accordance with the federal government decision, his government had also decided to raise the salaries of government employees by 20 percent, noting that it would entail an additional burden of Rs 10 billion on the budget.
Again, saying that being fully aware of such big deficit decision in view of comprehended certainty of success of the programmes to be initiated that moving toward relief and economic reform agenda. For as he elaborated, the deficit would be met through improvement in provincial revenue collection and mobilisation of additional revenue, to the accompaniment of an austerity drive to contain current expenditures.
However, he punctuated the claim for better approach this time by confidently announcing: "We have accepted a long-time demand of police, by bringing their salaries on a par with Punjab Police, and an amount of Rs 570 million has been allocated to this end".
Moreover, according to him, the highest ever allocation of Rs 77.31 billion has been made for the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP), (excluding Rs 12 billion of District Government Annual Development Programme) compared to Rs 62.25 billion in revised estimates of fiscal year 2008, depicting an increase of Rs 15.06 billion.
It will be noted that the PSDP comprises Rs 55 billion provincial Annual Development Programme (ADP), Rs 12 billion for the district governments ADP, Rs 510 million for drought emergency relief assistance (DERA), Rs 4.355 billion for foreign project assistance, Rs 2.735 billion for Sindh Development Social Services Programme (SDSSP) and Rs 2.008 billion for Sindh Cities Improvement Programme. Similarly, allocation for the provincial ADP has been raised by Rs 15 billion; ADP allocation for district government increased by Rs 2 billion, while cutting foreign project assistance by Rs 1.305 billion.
At the same time, revenue receipts have been estimated at Rs 207.836 billion, Rs 31.238 billion higher than current fiscal year's revenue receipts of Rs 176.598 billion. The revenue receipts include Rs 102.396 billion tax assignment, Rs 8.659 billion federal special grant-in-aid, Rs 30.25 billion provisional receipts, Rs 40.796 billion straight transfers and Rs 25.732 billion districts support grant and other grants.
More to this, capital receipts have been estimated Rs 9.719 billion higher than the current fiscal year's, as these are estimated at Rs 14.495 billion for the next fiscal year as against the revised receipts of Rs 4.476 billion in fiscal year 2007-08.
However, estimated current capital receipts comprise Rs 3.7 billion local payments, Rs 345 million from Sindh Devolved Social Service Programme, Rs 6.75 billion from World Bank, Rs one billion grants from European Commission and Rs 2.7 billion from Asian Development Bank, thus more or less depicting the current year's pattern. Capital expenditures estimated Rs 9.46 billion against Rs 8.396 billion of revised budget of the now outgoing fiscal. The overall revenue and capital receipts have been estimated at Rs 222.331 billion in the budget for the year 2008-09 against the revenue and capital expenditure of Rs 190.448 billion, depicting a surplus of Rs 31.883 billion in the next budget.
Current revenue expenditures have been increased by Rs 17.125 billion to Rs 180.987 billion for the next fiscal year, while provisional expenditure shows a rise of Rs 12.733 billion to Rs 102.997 billion for 2008-09 as compared to Rs 90.264 billion revised budget of current fiscal year.
In addition, local governments' expenditures have been estimated at Rs 77.989 billion for the next fiscal year from Rs 73.598 billion, showing an increase of Rs 4.391 billion. For fiscal year 2008-09, Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) receipts are estimated at Rs 63.297 billion against total expenditures of Rs 77.31 billion. However, the receipts have been estimated Rs 14 billion higher than the current fiscal year.
Masking a pointed reference to the social sector the Chief Minister said that education budget has been increased by 16 percent to Rs 19.5 billion from Rs 17 billion, while health budget has been raised to Rs 10.85 billion with an increase of 25 percent. He also said that Rs 5 billion would be provided by World Bank for distribution of free textbooks to over 5 million school students and Rs 609 million for scholarship for girl students from class V to X. Saying 50,000 posts were vacant in different departments of Sindh, he said 8,000 new jobs in the police and other departments would be provided in the next fiscal year.
Moreover, he made special mention of introduction of the health insurance scheme for the poor, under which 0.1 million households would be provided health insurance, in the first phase, as also of a huge programme for fighting hepatitis at a cost of Rs 5 billion. All in all the budget, as usual will to be marked more by ambition in the absence of elaboration on how implementation of various targets would be ensured.