President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain has said on Saturday that Rs 4.313 trillion budget will trigger the national development. He said it was a pro-development budget that will unleash business activities boosting employment, collections and forex reserves.
"A budget better than what was announced by Finance Minister, Ishaq Dar was not possible on this critical juncture," Mian Zahid said. He said taxation is unavoidable and there is no country in the history of the world without one or the other form of tax system. Mian Zahid also hailed raise in the defence allocation by 11.6 percent and said this was necessary to check terrorism and safeguard economic corridor from enemies.
He also appreciated allocation of Rs 3.5 billion for the safety of Chinese working on different projects in Pakistan including economic corridor. Mian Zahid Hussain also felicitated Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government's decision to raise PDSP by 20 percent or Rs 158 billion and allocation of Rs 163 billion for two LNG based power plants.
The upward revised allocations for health, education, and agriculture sectors show seriousness of the government while soft loans on solar tubewells will improve living standard of the planters. He asked government to review 32 percent deduction on subsidy for power and commodity sector which will shrink this account from current Rs 203.24 billion to Rs 137.6 billion. He also asked Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif to ensure a people's friendly budget to follow good governance trend of Sharifs. He also urged the government to pay more attention on water, power, energy, SMEs, small scale manufacturing sectors for better progress.