presented<\/a> its first four-month \u2014 July-October \u2014 budget to the tune of Rs1.72 trillion after having spent the remaining six months\u2019 budget (Jan\u00aduary-June 2023) approved by the previous PTI government for FY23.<\/p>\nThis budget, which is expiring on October 31 (tomo\u00adrrow), had raised many eyebrows because its document did not provide any details about the money to be spent in the run-up to the elections, which were originally expected in October.<\/p>\n
The first four-month budget also triggered widespread speculation that it might allocate funds for development projects and subsidies based on PML-N\u2019s political agenda.<\/p>\n
Since it is generally unprecedented for a caretaker government to present its second four-month (120 days) budget, the Punjab government sought clarification from the provincial law department to avoid legal issues.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the advo\u00adcate general informed the caretaker Punjab government that a precedent of a second budget by a caretaker government was available and ratified by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
This happened when the caretaker government, following the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was allowed to present its second four-month budget in 2008.<\/p>\n
Sources claim the caretaker Punjab government has prepared a budget of some Rs2.12tr, with a breakdown of Rs1.8tr for non-development expenditures and Rs320 billion for the development budget for the ongoing development schemes.<\/p>\n
The non-development budget has been allocated for administrative, rout\u00adine, and operational expe\u00adnditures, which include the salaries of the Punjab government employees.<\/p>\n
The Planning and Deve\u00adlopment Board, Punjab, has reportedly prepared a budget of around Rs320bn for some 4,900 development schemes currently under execution in the pro\u00advince. The funds have been allocated for 120 days, beginning from Nov 1.<\/p>\n
The P&D Board has not allocated any funds for any new development scheme, as per the instructions of the Election Commission of Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAHORE: The caretaker Punjab government is all set to present its second four-month budget of the ongoing financial year 2023-24 before the cabinet, led by Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi, on Monday (today). Earlier in June, the caretaker government had presented its first four-month \u2014 July-October \u2014 budget to the tune of Rs1.72 trillion after having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/30082407525e412.png?r=084152","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}