LAHORE: The Punjab government has not received its Rs57bn share of revenue receipts yet from the federal government but it is set to present its revised budget and seek authorisation for supplementary grants in the Punjab Assembly budget session on May 14.

The Punjab finance department on Thursday closed the budget books for the current fiscal 2017-18 and sent the revised budget estimate books for printing.

The Punjab cabinet meeting has also been called for May 14 ahead of the assembly session to give go-ahead for the revised and supplementary budget.

The Punjab government has prepared its revised budget for the next six weeks (May 14 onwards) of the current financial year, ensuring that the difference between the expenditure and actual releases from the federal government should be the minimum, a source in the government said.

“The Punjab government will be managing the cash flow in the next six weeks,” the official said.

The caretaker government, to be installed early next month, will now be in a position to give four-month budget for the next fiscal 2018-19. The incumbent government, it is learnt, has prepared a complete budget document for the next financial year for the benefit of the caretaker government and the next elected government.

With the closing of the budget books, it is learnt that all the Punjab government projects and programmes’ funding had been closed for good for the current financial year.

Since Punjab government’s major Khadim-e-Punjab Saaf Dehat programme funding was also stopped due to delay in finalising the programme budget and eventual ban slapped by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), it is learnt the Punjab government had held a meeting on Tuesday to find out ways for funding the programme. The finance department, it is learnt, told the government that funding could not be released owing to certain technical reasons.

It may be mentioned that the ECP had imposed the ban on new development projects as well as fresh recruitments that might help the incumbent government politically in the next general election. However, it is learnt, the Supreme Court on Thursday relieved the ban on appointments in different cases being heard.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2018