The Punjab government has created a new record of approving supplementary grants as Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has left the previous governments far behind by approving auxiliary grants to the tune of Rs177 billion, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The additional expenditures of the Punjab government are increasing day by day as is evident from the fact that apart from the approved budget of the province for this fiscal, Rs177 billion extra grants have also been sanctioned. 

As per the documents which are obtained by 24NewsHD, Chief Minister Elahi has got approved Rs139 billion worth supplementary grants under the head of development projects, out of which, Rs37.9 billion auxiliary grants have been approved under the head of non-development expenditures. 

According to documents, Rs60 billion additional grant has been approved exclusively for the chief minister’s hometown Gujrat under the head of development sector. 

As per the funds breakdown, Rs70 billion have been approved for the road sector; Rs11 billion for water supply; Rs13 billion for local government; Rs8 billion for urban development; Rs4 billion for sports; and Rs18 billion have been sanctioned for higher education.

Rs6 billion supplementary grant has been approved under the head of non-development expenditure for the purchase of vehicles. 

Besides this, the Punjab CM has misused government resources with impunity and doled out billions to publicize his government performance. 

His government, after approving Rs7 billion supplementary grants, also sanctioned Rs2.33 billion for his government’s advertisement campaign. 

According to documents, Elahi has approved more than Rs9 billion budget during last five months and more than 15 departments have been using this budget for government advertisement campaign.

It’s the irony of the situation that on one hand, the Punjab government has approved supplementary grants of billions. While on the other, the Punjab government has imposed several restrictions after adopting austerity policy.