Govt sets PSDP outlay at Rs800bn

June 05, 2022: Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said the size of the federal development budget under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) has been set at Rs800 billion for the upcoming fiscal year 2022-23.

Out of the total outlay, he said Rs 100 billion would be utilized through the Private Public Partnership (PPP).

Briefing media here after chairing the meeting of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC), Ahsan Iqbal said the meeting reviewed the recommendation for the development budget 2022-23 presented by various concerned stakeholders of the federal as well as provincial governments.

“Under the feedback of those recommendations, we will present the proposals for the federal PSDP 2022-23 with a total outlay of Rs 800 billion to the National Economic Council (NEC) on June 07, 2022”, he said.

This year, preparing the PSDP was a very challenging task because, for the first time in 75 years, no releases were made in the last quarter of the fiscal year 2021-22 due to the non-availability of funds in the national kitty.

Due to this, he said the government’s portfolio was badly affected and for the next fiscal year, the minister could manage Rs 700 billion.

He said when the PML-N left the government in 2017-18, the federal PSDP size was Rs 1000 billion, however, despite a lapse of five years, the budget cut halved to only Rs 500 billion in the year 2021-22.

“We were expecting instead that keeping in view the country’s increasing requirements, the PSDP would have increased up to Rs 2 trillion”, he added.

He said the next year’s development budget strategy had been kept prudent to make the budget as per the country’s needs.

He said for the upcoming fiscal year, the government was going to allocate 90% of funds for the ongoing schemes while new schemes would get only 10% of the total size.

APP