The newly formed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government on Wednesday unveiled the federal budget for the financial year 2013-14 with a total outlay of Rs3.5 trillion.
The budget was presented by federal finance minister Senior Ishaq Dar at the special session of the National Assembly.
The budget, which Dar described as an “investment and business friendly budget”, has allocated Rs 627 billion for defense compared to Rs 570 billion for last year.
A record Rs1.155 trillion have been allocated for the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) with the aspiration to arouse the economy which is currently at crossroad.
A whopping amount of Rs 225 billion has been reserved for the energy sector.
The finance minister proposed an escalation of 16% to 17% in the General Sales Tax (GST), a decision which will take the commodities further away from the approach of people, who are already hammered by the worst inflation in the country.
There is good news for retired government employees as an increase of 10% has been proposed in their pension, with minimum monthly annuity rising from Rs 3000 to 5000.