AJK presents Rs1.63 trillion deficit budget ‘in protest’

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir government has unveiled Rs1.6370 trillion budget for the fiscal year of 2022-23 with its foreign minister saying that he is presenting a Rs10 billion deficit budget in protest in the face of cuts in grants by the government of Pakistan, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The budget has set aside Rs1.3520 trillion for non-development expenditure and RsRs28.50 billion for the development expenditure. 

AJK Finance Minister Abdul Majid Khan on Saturday presented the budget in the assembly. He touted that despite difficult financial situation, the AJK government gave a public-friendly budget for the next fiscal. 

He said that the AJK government has already announced 15% disparity reduction allowance and 15% increase in the revised pay scales of the government employees and pensioners. 

He said that Rs2 billion have been earmarked for education; Rs12 billion for communication; and Rs3.30 billion have been allocated for physical planning and housing sector.

The minister said that additional funds have been set aside for health department in the budget, adding that a large amount of money has been earmarked for electricity and water supply.

He said that for the establishment of a university under the Skilled Muzaffarabad Annual Development programme, funds would be allocated.

He informed that the AJK government for the first time in country’s history is launching Digital Mapping for the promotion of tourism in the area. 

He said that the AJK government gives priority to the Held Kashmir issue and freedom of its people from the Indian subjugation. 

He also told the assembly that the PTI government in AJK was going to establish Rehmat-ul-Lil Alemin Authority.

Majid Khan told the assembly that he was presenting Rs10 billion deficit budget as a mark of protest.

On June 13, an ‘extraordinary meeting’ of the members of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) cabinet and parliamentary secretaries on Sunday decided not to present the 2022-23 budget in the event of cuts by the government of Pakistan on the region’s budgetary grants.

Presided over by AJK Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, the meeting was attended by 13 out of 16 ministers, three out of four advisers and special assistants, and three out of five parliamentary secretaries.

Reporter Safeer Raza