ISLAMABAD: The government is planning to present proposals for next financial year’s federal budget before the National Assembly on May 29.

A senior official of the finance ministry told Dawn on Sunday that under the new budget the allocation for development programme would be increased by over 30 per cent to Rs600 billion and the government employees would get a 10pc raise in their salary.

Take a look: Govt may allocate Rs575bn for development in next budget

He said the schedule for the budget process had been shared with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF is expected to announce completion of the seventh quarterly review of its bailout package in Islama­bad on Monday, which will lead to disbursement of around $500m to Pakistan.

Federal budget likely to be announced on 29th

The official said the new budget would see a partial departure from the last two budgets announced by the PML-N government, when its focus remained on stabilisation through increased taxation, lower subsidies and tight control on expenditure, particularly development spending.

This would mean “beginning of the policy of expansion with a fine mix of continuation of stabilisation” in the next budget, through an enhanced development programme and no fresh taxation but improved tax compliance and netting of tax evaders.

The official said the current year’s fiscal deficit would be around 5.5pc of GDP against the target of 4.9pc because of the $1.75bn spent on security-related matters including the Zarb-i-Azb operation. Under the new budget the government is expected to set aside a similar amount for security-related matters even though the scale of the military operation is expected to be curtailed. The next year’s deficit will be set at around 4.5pc of GDP against 4pc previously agreed with the IMF.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2015

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