MUZAFFARABAD: Within hours of its presentation, the AJK budget for 2011-12 was passed by the Legislative Assembly on Monday because more than half of its members were busy in electioneering.
Finance Minister Abdul Rashid Abbasi presented a deficit budget with an outlay of Rs44.549 billion. It proposed Rs36.265 billion for recurring expenditure and Rs8.284 billion for development.
The budget estimates an income of Rs31.205 billion, to be generated from AJK’s internal resources (Rs13.645 billion), AJK’s 80 per cent share in the taxes collected from the AJK territory by the AJK Council (Rs6.9 billion), share in federal taxes (Rs9.94 billion) and water use charges of Mangla dam (Rs720 million).
The Rs5.06 billion gap will be bridged by the central government. The minister claimed that the government had presented a balanced budget within available resources, with due focus to almost all sectors.
Allocations for non-development expenditure of some of the departments are: Rs1,396.709 million had been allocated for administration, Rs433.391 million for the Board of Revenue, Rs685.775 million for rehabilitation and reconstruction, Rs2.3 billion for pensions, Rs641.522 million for judiciary, Rs2.769 billion for police, Rs83.330 million for prisons, Rs39.984 million for civil defence, Rs30.821 million for Armed Services Board, Rs1,473.203 million for communication and works, Rs11,083.674 for education, Rs2,582.315 million for public health, Rs44.420 million for sports, youth and culture, Rs114.957 million for religious affairs, Rs82.133 million for social welfare and women development, Rs336.287 million for agriculture, Rs346.194 million for animal husbandry, Rs116.865 million for food, Rs481.612 million for forests, Rs4,968.002 million for electricity, Rs78.227 million for industries and minerals, Rs42.555 million for sericulture and Rs74.326 million for tourism, wildlife and fisheries.
Regarding the development sector allocations, the minister said that Rs118 million had been proposed for agriculture and livestock, Rs32 million for civil defence, Rs135 million for development authorities, Rs635 million for education, Rs15 million for environment, Rs299 million for foreign-aided projects, Rs287 million for forests, fisheries and wildlife, Rs16 million for information and media development, Rs200 million for information technology, Rs143 million for industries, Rs800 million for local government and rural development, Rs1,050 million for hydropower generation, Rs613 million for physical planning and housing, Rs75 million for research and development, Rs25 million for social welfare, Rs140 million for sports, Rs3,310 million for communications and Rs125 million for tourism.
The minister said that in addition to the Rs8.284 billion development budget, the ministry of Kashmir affairs had reserved Rs2.494 billion in its budget for development work in the AJK.
Apart from the Kashmir affairs ministry, the amount allocated by other federal ministries for their ongoing projects in the AJK stood at Rs18.913 billion, he said, adding that another Rs10 billion had been allocated by Erra under its reconstruction programme in Azad Kashmir.
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