LAHORE: Like Islamabad, the Punjab government also intends to put to commercial use its huge properties, including rest houses and recreational facilities, to generate funds for development and pay its liabilities such as huge salary bill, official sources informed Dawn.

According to them, the government was expected to give Rs2,300 billion budget for 2019-20 as against the current Rs2,026bn. It intended to increase the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the next fiscal year from the existing Rs238bn to Rs400-450bn. The recurring budget (spending) was also likely to go up from the current Rs1264bn to Rs1500bn.

But the billion dollar question is how to generate income for such a huge spending. The idea is to increase the income either by increasing taxes and duties or putting to commercial use the assets. Sources said the PRA was discussing the possible ways of increasing the provincial income through taxes and duties with the federal government. But a decision to this effect was yet to be taken.

Sources said it had already been decided to collect revenue by offering the government assets to the private sector for commercial use. One option was to offer all the provincial rest houses and circuit houses on rent. A website had already been created notifying new and enhanced rates of the rest houses.

According to the revised notified rates, per room daily rent of a government rest house had been increased from the existing Rs500 per room to Rs2,000 for government functionaries and Rs4,000 for private persons.

The tourism department had notified the availability of its rest houses all over the province. All other departments were expected to follow the suit by June 1.

Sources said the provincial government might also put to commercial use its numerous sports complexes which lacked facilities and were not fully functional because of paucity of funds. One such target would be the modern swimming pool that was built at the cost of over one billion rupees by the Shahbaz Sharif government near the Gaddhafi Stadium.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2019