Punjab Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht presented the budget, which received unanimous approval from the Punjab Cabinet.
The Cabinet also approved the much-anticipated 10% increase in salaries and pension of provincial employees and greenlighted the decision to increase the minimum wage of workers from Rs 17,500 to Rs 20,000.
Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz has declared the Punjab budget for 2021-22 a ‘jugglery of numbers’.
Talking to the media after the budget session, he said that a minimum wage of Rs 20,000 is not justified given the country's worst inflation record.
The middle classes and the poor will be paying over ~Rs 383 billion more in taxes through higher prices of ghee, milk, sugar & other essential edible items. This anti-people budget has imposed taxes even on medical allowances of salaried people & their provident fund’s profits...— Shehbaz Sharif (القدس في العيون) (@CMShehbaz) June 15, 2021
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