Social Policy Orientation of Budget 2021-22 - Joint PIDE-& SPRC One-day Conference

Pakistan has a tradition of holding budget seminars from the economic policies perspective. Though the budgets are primarily annual income/expenditure plans, the national budgets are also used to introduce policy changes and better designed budgets can have better socioeconomic impacts. The budgets also reveal the policy and ideological orientation of the political party in power. Pakistan’s budgets are hardly studied in terms of their social policy orientation. Given the high incidence of poverty, inequality, social exclusion and unemployment in Pakistan, there is a dire need to critically study the Social Policy Orientation of the Budgets. It is highly likely that the government placates the genuine aspirations of the citizens’ with a simplistic rhetoric of presenting pro-poor budgets, while continuing with budgetary structures, which accentuate the existing social disparities. Due to historic high flow of remittances and significant debt relief given by the international lenders, the government should be able to bolster its Social Policy, by reducing the influence of those segments who benefit disproportionately from the resource distribution effected by the budget in the name of Growth.