Sindh Approves Rs3.45T Budget for FY25-26

Karachi, June 25, 2025 — The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday passed a Rs3.45 trillion budget for FY 2025–26, a 12.9% hike from last year, blending sweeping tax relief with record development spending, as Chief Minister-elect Syed Murad Ali Shah, also the finance head, unveiled the Sindh Finance Bill 2025. The opposition’s 2,000 cut motions were overwhelmingly rejected by majority vote.

Murad touted the financial plan as a pro-growth, pro-people push to bolster social protections, upgrade infrastructure, and drive economic reforms, scrapping six levies, including the professional tax—offering Rs5 billion relief to salaried workers and small businesses. The entertainment duty is axed to revive culture, land documentation fees cut by 50%, the commercial vehicle tax capped at Rs1,000 annually, stamp duty on third-party vehicle insurance set at Rs50, and motorcycle insurance fully exempted.

Development expenditure hits Rs1,018.3 billion (30% of the budget), with Rs281.7 billion for capital investments, plus Rs43 billion for an ad-hoc relief allowance and Rs16 billion for a 15% pension hike. Education gets Rs42.2 billion for public universities and Rs10.4 billion for medical education, while the Annual Development Programme allocates Rs8 billion to the Benazir Hari Card, Rs2 billion for low-income housing, and Rs25 billion for renewable energy. Land governance modernizes with blockchain-based digitization and a single-step ownership transfer, alongside mobile birth registration and farmer credit via the Sindh Cooperative Bank.

Web context flags Sindh’s fiscal challenges (e.g., past revenue gaps), while posts found on X show mixed reactions—some praise relief, others doubt sustainability. Critically, the narrative of “pro-people growth” may mask funding strains—web data hints at debt reliance, and X sentiment suggests distrust in long-term execution, pointing to potential risks.