Punjab Budget: Pleasing the populace

Punjab’s spending plan for the first four months — from July 1 to October 31 — of the next financial year unveiled last week clearly and unmistakably carries PML-N’s signature all over it: a massive development stimulus, a bloated subsidy and social protection programme, and an increase in the pay and pension of government employees. The Rs1.7 trillion expenditures authorised last week by the caretaker provincial administration led by Mohsin Naqvi to manage the affairs of the government in the run-up to the national election is loaded with a development stimulus of Rs325 billion, social protection and subsidy programme of Rs103.3bn, an endowment fund of Rs1bn for journalists, abolition of existing taxes on the IT sector, and allocations for the establishment of an IT Park in Lahore. No wonder it has triggered a debate on whether the caretakers have transgressed their mandate and if the massive allocations for development, social protection, and subsidy for the period leading up to new elections that must be held in October are meant to lift the sagging electoral prospects of the Noon League in the province.