ISLAMABAD: The budget 2025-26 allocated Rs1,000 billion for federal Public Sector Development Programme while provincial Annual Development Plans earmarked 2,869 billion. A separate allocation has been envisaged for state-owned entities, ie, Rs355 billion against Rs196.839 billion last fiscal year.
The budgeted allocation for 2024-25 was Rs1,400 billion and the current year is lower allocation which indicates a decline of 28.5 percent next fiscal year. During the year the government reduced it to Rs1.1 trillion due to narrow fiscal space.
The highest allocation under the PSDP has been earmarked for transport at Ra 225 billion with roads (Quetta-Karachi dualisation, Sukkur Hyderabad motorway, Eastbay Expressway accounting for a total cost of 501 billion rupees), water resources 184 billion rupees in spite of Pakistan being a water stressed country and climate allocated a mere 5.26 billion rupees though Pakistan is a major climate stressed country.
Climate resilience projects include urban flood strategy and spatial planning 106 million rupees, green Pakistan 2.25 billion rupees, green skills and innovation 450 million rupees and biosafety and SDG reporting 300 million rupees.
Three ongoing dams have been allocated the following amounts: Bhasha dam 60 billion rupees, Dasu 20 billion rupees, Mohmand 15 billion rupees while K-IV electric water supply has been budgeted 12 billion rupees and rural electrification and solarisation 10 billion rupees.
Merged districts have been allocated a budget of 70 billion rupees and special areas (AJK and GB) 74.5 billion rupees. Health services which witnessed a major inflationary impact last fiscal year are budgeted at 24.7 billion rupees while IT and telecom, with potential to emerge as a major source of foreign exchange earnings budgeted at 23 billion rupees.
The government has budgeted 61 billion rupees for Higher Education Commission, 4.7 billion rupees for NAVTTC Skill programme, 14 billion rupees for Pakistan Education Endowment, 5 billion rupees for cancer hospital Islamabad and 10 billion rupees for hepatitis and diabetes control.
The PSDP handout states that Uraan Pakistan, a vision for the future, is our pledge, with no region ignored, no citizen forgotten, no potential wasted.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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