Before presiding over a meeting on the next annual budget and national economy, Prime Minister Imran Khan without protocol on Sunday drove to G-11 Markaz and some other areas of the federal capital and interacted with cart owners.
Improving GDP growth and tackling inflation being the main areas of focus, the prime minister said the government should prepare a development-oriented budget for the year 2021-22.
“Give special attention to development projects and measures to control the inflation while formulating the upcoming annual budget.”
Mr Khan said at the meeting.
Besides ensuring the completion of ongoing development projects, new projects should be designed in accordance with the public needs, he said.
وزیرِ اعظم عمران خان کی زیر صدارت آئندہ بجٹ اور ملکی معیشت کے حوالے سے اعلی سطح کا اجلاس pic.twitter.com/KyvBOK4VqK
— Prime Minister's Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) May 2, 2021
The meeting was attended by the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, federal ministers Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Pervaiz Khattak, Shafqat Mahmood, and Fawad Chaudhry, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman, KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, provincial ministers Hashim Jawan Bakht, Taimur Saleem Jhagra, and relevant senior officers.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told a local Newspaper that the prime minister and Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin both had the desire that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government should focus on development-oriented economy during the last two years of its five-year term.
He recalled Punjab’s development budget cut down to Rs90 billion though it was Rs200bn initially for the current fiscal year.
In a recent PTI parliamentary party meeting, he said, party legislators had demanded funds for their constituencies and asked the prime minister that people of their constituencies were demanding that their basic issues be resolved. Keeping in view of the desire of ruling party parliamentarians, the prime minister decided to increase development funds of all provinces.
The prime minister requested proposals from the senior party leadership regarding the next budget. Briefing was given to the prime minister about revenue collection amid the Covid-19 situation and to control inflation, a comprehensive strategy was devised.
