LAHORE - The provincial government has cranked up spending on law and order with the police budget allocation alone rising by an unprecedented Rs11billion for the fiscal year 2014-15.
The finance minister announced a 16 per cent increase from last year’s budget for the police, allocating another Rs5b for the counter-terrorism department. During its budget estimates presented in the Punjab Assembly on Friday, the government proposed an allocation of Rs81.68b for the police department against the last year’s allocation of Rs71.51b. While, in 2012-13 only Rs62 billion had been allocated for the department. For the next fiscal year, allocation for the police has been increased from Rs7051m to Rs8168m. In this way, an additional allocation of Rs1117m has been provided to the police that represents an increase of 16 per cent over budget estimates of 2013-14, says the budget document.
“At present, the country is confronting the most serious challenge of terrorism. To overcome this, we need to get prepared on multiple fronts,” the finance minister asserted while justifying the huge increase for the police allocation during his speech in the Punjab Assembly amid uproar and protests by opposition.
Country’s largest law enforcing agency will use billions of rupees for massive expansion and re-equipping to deal with rising internal security threats.