PUNJAB has announced the expected development-driven budget for 2017-2018. The Shahbaz Sharif government seems confident that once the mega infrastructure projects are completed, large-scale investment will boost the ruling party’s standing among voters ahead of general elections. Besides raising development spending by a fifth to Rs635bn from the revised estimates of Rs532bn for the outgoing year, the government has offered a number of freebies for constituents, both in the rural and urban areas. A political party whose top leadership is faced with a corruption probe will do anything to wean the public away from the hype the opposition and media have created on the issue. The budget’s focus on elections aside, the provincial government certainly has many successes to show off. The outgoing fiscal is probably the first year in decades when any government collected almost 95pc of its provincial tax target — even if the target was set below potential. Also, the government has substantially increased allocations for the social sector — education, health etc — and is on schedule to complete most ongoing development projects.

The last budget of the five-year term entails a certain kind of caution on the government’s part. The new budget betrays a desire to not ignore any area as the chief minister seeks to woo voters from the less developed parts of the province such as the southern districts. However, it is unlikely that inequalities between different regions, created by development priorities and urban bias, can be removed in one year. Also, the rulers have failed to attract local investment in job-creating sectors of the economy because of an excessive obsession with companies from a couple of favourite countries as a panacea for all problems ranging from garbage collection to power generation. Despite an obvious attempt at establishing some kind of equality among regions and sectors, diversity is lacking from this latest road map to have emerged from the chief minister’s office.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2017