ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet kept on approving technical supplementary grants just a couple of days ahead of expected approval of the federal budget later this week.

Presided over by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, the ECC was called without any other agenda except to approve five technical supplementary grants (TSG) having total allocation of Rs9.856bn.

The meeting approved TSG worth Rs9.393bn for Covid-19 Response and Other Natural Calamities Control Programme (Sindh Component) and Rs300 million TSG for allocation from Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for establishment of Joint Border Markets at Mand District Kech, Gabd District Gwadar and Chedgi, District Panjgur in Balochistan at the rate of Rs100m each.

The meeting also approved two TSGs of about Rs124m demanded by the Ministry of Interior including a Rs98.7m to meet the requirements of Frontier Corps KP (South), D.I. Khan and Rs25m for Headquarters of Pakistan Rangers Islamabad.

The ECC also approved a TSG of Rs39.058m to Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) to meet a financing gap in payment of salaries as well pensions to its employees.

A few days ago, the Ministry of Finance had sought post-facto approval of a record Rs1.248 trillion supplementary grants for expenditure overruns and re-appropriation with the caveat that the requests for these grants had been received by May 7, 2021. The parliament was told that further requests for supplementary grants and re-appropriations would be updated before the passage of federal budget 2021-22.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2021