LAHORE: The Punjab government is learnt to have started finalising its annual development programme (ADP) of around Rs434 billion for the next financial year, holding hectic meetings for the purpose.

Official sources informed Dawn on Wednesday that the provincial government had also convened a session of the Punjab Assembly to seek opinion and suggestions of the members before finalising the ADP. The provincial finance minister would give a hint of the main features of the expected development budget while concluding the pre-budget debate in the assembly, they said.

The PTI Punjab had in October last year given a nine-month budget for the province, having the ADP of just Rs238 billion because of severe shortage of funds.

The previous Shahbaz Sharif government had given a Rs635 billion development budget, its last, for the year 2017-18.

Officials nevertheless said that the final figure for the next year’s ADP depended heavily on the federal receivables that included shares from the federal divisible pool and grants which constitute 75 to 80 per cent of the provincial budget.

The province arranges for just one quarter of the resources through excise and taxation department, Board of Revenue and the Punjab Revenue Authority.

The officials said the provincial government had not been able to arrest the decline in its income from various taxes and duties despite hectic efforts because of an overall industrial and business slump. The PRA officials were conducting raids at mega departmental stores, restaurants, hotels, bakeries and hospitals to plug all loopholes in duty collection. Officials had also been deputed to stay in some big tax evading establishments to keep a direct eye on their incomes, the officials said.

They said the major component of the PRA’s income was the deduction of tax from the mobile phone cards but it was stopped under direction by the Supreme Court, rendering a great loss to the province which was an annual around Rs70 to 80 billion.

But now, the officials said, the authorities were in league with the federal government framing a policy under which the tax on the mobile phone cards could be restored without burdening the consumers. “This was the main source of income and efforts are being made to have it restored,” one of the officials said.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019