Summary Finance Minister said the government has doubled budget for the Baitul Mal.
ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said the government is trying to improve lives of those who live below the poverty line, the Radio Pakistan reported.
He was addressing a function in connection with signing of MoU between Pakistan Baitul Mal and Universal Service Fund in Islamabad today (Friday).
The Finance Minister said the government has increased budget for the Baitul Mal by hundred percent for the welfare of the poor people.
He said difficult decisions have been taken to create financial discipline and the government wants to see the country strong and economically self-sufficient in the future.
Ishaq Dar said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has the will to defeat challenges of terrorism and economy being faced by the country.
Earlier today, the National Assembly during questions hour today was informed that the present government has increased budgetary allocations for Benazir Income Support Programme from 40 billion rupees in 2012-13 to 102 billion rupees in 2015-16.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan told the house that disbursement system of the programme has also been improved through Smart Cards.
He said a new survey under this BISP programme will be carried out next year to identify new deserving families.
Khan told the House during question hour that BISP is not a poverty reduction programme rather it is an income support programme to provide a minimum income package to the poor.
To a question, Rana Afzal Khan informed the House that the government is taking loan within limit. He said under fiscal responsibilities and Debt Limitations Act loans cannot be taken more than sixty percent of GDP. He said when we took over, the loans were 62.3 percent of GDP.
Rana Afzal said the foreign loan received by Pakistan during the tenure of present government amounted to over 9.7 billion dollars excluding bonds and IMF loan. He said sufficient budgetary provision is ensured for the purpose of debt servicing.
He said the IMF loan was exclusively to build foreign exchange reserves and cannot and has not been used by the government for budgetary supports. He said the currently the foreign exchange reserves stands at 19.919 billion dollars.
