The Balochistan government on Tuesday presented its budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 with a total outlay of Rs612 billion.

Balochistan Finance Minister Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran presented the province’s budget in the Balochistan Assembly after the session was postponed twice as some details could not be finalised.

The provincial finance minister in his budget speech said that no new tax had been imposed in the budget.

The finance minister also announced 15% increase in the salaries of government employees.

He said that the outlay of non-developmental funds for FY23 was Rs367 billion and a sum of Rs191.5 billion was allocated for the development projects under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). The total revenue of the province was estimated at Rs540 billion for the next fiscal year, he added.

The minister said that 133 billion rupees have been set aside for more than 3000 ongoing development schemes, while 59 billion rupees have been placed for new development schemes.

A sum of 21 billion rupees has been allocated for the agriculture sector.

Khetran said that 2,851 jobs have been created in the new budget.

The minister said that Rs38 billion had been allocated for health, Rs70 billion for education while Rs44 billion had been allocated for law and order.

Rs450 million have been allocated for irrigation, he said and added that out of which Rs3.47 million would be spent on non-development schemes and Rs29 billion would be spent on development initiatives.

He said that Rs2.9 billion have been set aside to provide interest-free loans to farmers for wheat procurement.

Khetran went on to say that a sum of Rs2.5 billion was allocated for Balochistan Pension Fund and Rs1.75 billion would be spent on Food Security Revolving Fund.

He said that the provincial government would spend Rs2.5 billion for land revenue management information system and Rs1.48 billion for Gwadar Safe City Project Phase 1.