ISLAMABAD: After suffering opposition brickbats for a week, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar agreed in the National Assembly on Tuesday to give some both major and minor concessions in the new budget, including a Rs14 billion subsidy on phosphate fertilisers to be shared equally by the federal and provincial governments.

Announcing the changes while winding up a general debate on the national budget for 2014-15, he also assured the house that the Nawaz Sharif government would provide all resources needed to carry out the newly launched anti-terrorist military operation in North Waziristan and take care of people to be displaced by the campaign.

He said needs of the forces could be met through supplementary demands for grants and said an amount of Rs500 million had been sanctioned earlier in the day to help internally displaced persons from North Waziristan.

Devoting most of a long speech to rebut opposition charges of the budget he unveiled on June 3 as being anti-poor and pro-rich – which he called “full of hope and expectations” – the minister also told the house that the finance ministry had fully or partially accepted 57 of the 133 non-binding recommendations made by the Senate, while decisions on 49 others would be taken after a “due process” of required consultation with other departments concerned and provincial governments.

But he did not specify the accepted recommendations, which were approved by the Senate on Monday evening.

Mr Dar spoke in a relatively calm house hours after the opposition staged the angriest token walkout to protest against a deadly police operation by the Punjab police outside the Lahore home of the famous Canada-based religious scholar in the morning to remove alleged encroachments.

He directed most of his ire, while contesting opposition criticism, at Naveed Qamar, a former finance minister in the previous PPP-led coalition government, for his questioning of the present government’s claims of achievements.

Mr Dar said the fertiliser subsidy would mean a reduction of “Rs400 per bag of phosphate fertiliser and potash”, which he hoped would help increase agricultural production.

Another important concession he announced was a revision of the budget proposal to allow increase of a Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) to up to Rs300 from Rs100 per MMBTU – opposed by some opposition members from gas-producing Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa provinces with demands that its collection should go to provinces – with a new schedule reducing the rate for power sector back to Rs100, for industries to Rs150 and to zero for cement.

Other changes are: Sales tax on the import of tractors, which was proposed to be increased to 16 per cent, to remain at its previous rate of 10pc.

An incentives package to promote industry in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to remain effective for five years until June 30, 2019.

A package allowing duty-free import of machinery for fruit processing in Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan and Malakand division of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa to be applicable to every kind of industry in Fata.

Uniform income tax rate of 4pc for fist class international air tickets – for both filers of return and non-compliant – instead of 3pc and 6pc, respectively.

Sales tax on the import of edible oil seeds reduced to 16pc from a proposed 17pc.

Incoming international calls by overseas Pakistanis exempted from a levy imposed under the International Clearing House policy in force since October 2012 in a move to eliminate grey traffic.

Opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah was unimpressed and urged the finance minister to increase salaries of government employees by 20pc from the proposed 10pc.

But former house speaker Fehmida Mirza of the PPP, who, in what appeared to be the most eloquent speech of the debate, said neither everything was good nor everything bad in the budget, and called for fixing right priorities taking into account ground realities such as the prevailing poverty and declaring an “education emergency”.

Earlier, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman sought, in a long speech, to justify his government-allied party’s decision not to support the military operation in North Waziristan and pleaded for a return to dialogue.

He complained to the government for not consulting his party in the matter, though he said the decision to launch the operation had actually been taken by the army.

Amir Haider Khan Hoti, a former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister of the opposition Awami National Party, also complained that political leadership had not been taken into confidence, but he said “we support and own this effort”.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2014