Dr. Bashir Ahmad

Let’s be honest — when was the last time a budget speech actually made your wallet feel heavier? Or your kitchen less empty? Or your child’s school fee slip any less painful?

If you’re a government babu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, you probably perked up at the 7% salary bump. If you’re a daily wager, the Rs. 45,000 minimum wage announcement may have sounded like music — until you remembered that the music in KP usually stops before the wages actually start. If you’re a small kisan, the Ehsaas Kisan card grabbed your eye. And if you are just an ordinary citizen, watching the atta price climb while your salary politely stays at the gate, the only question on your mind is the oldest one in Pashto marketplaces: “Sta paiza ghware ke ghwaro ke neshta?” — whose bread truly tastes of bread, and whose only tastes of paper?

Welcome to the KP Budget 2026–27 — a Rs. 2.17 trillion heady cocktail of numbers, promises, and what our elders politely call theek-o-tar. The government calls it “Khushhal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” The opposition, with dry chuckles in the Assembly lounge, calls it number-jugglery. The truth, as always in Peshawar and Islamabad circles, sits somewhere painfully in between — and as the proverb says, “Da ghwa di ba da lmaray ta ba” — the taste of bread is known only by the one who actually eats it.

The Grand Priorities — Guns, Books, and Bandages, but in what Order?

Credit first where credit is due: the ruling benches have, on paper, picked the right fights. Law and order? Education? Healthcare? All on the list.

Law and order got a jaw-dropping Rs. 191 billion — a 185% jump from the base of a few years ago. Bulletproof vehicles, drones, Safe City camera walls — KP is arming itself like it’s prepping for a sci-fi war. Given the long, porous border and the daily grind in the merged districts, maybe some of this is justified. But here’s the prickly question staring back from the page: when your police budget is now almost 41% of your education budget, what exactly are you protecting — and for whom? In research terms, the partisan theory of budgets predicts exactly this skew: when the priorities of the ruling party tilt toward “security optics,” the slider quietly moves away from accountability and away from the long, boring work of institutions.

 When you teach a generation that the state is mostly a man with a uniform and a Hilux, don’t be stunned when, fifteen years later, the same generation votes for another uniformed man with a bigger Hilux.

 Education received Rs. 468 billion — headline-friendly, with 72 Chief Minister Model Schools announced and free textbooks queued up. Pretty. But KP’s literacy still hovers around 56.7% — meaning close to half the province cannot read this very column. Pakistan’s national education spend has slid down to a shameful 0.8% of GDP. That is not a number; that is a verdict. Children grow up exactly once.

Healthcare got Rs. 334 billion, including Rs. 50 billion for the Health Card — the PTI government’s political lifeline, and, for over 32 million patients treated so far, a literal lifeline. Globally and locally, the evidence is consistent: well-designed social-protection schemes do reduce the depth of multidimensional poverty, especially when they reach women and informal workers. Good… But here is the catch the press release won’t print: the Medical Teaching Institutions reportedly demanded Rs. 112 billion and got around Rs. 80 billion. The government’s official answer? “Strengthen primary healthcare, please get sick at the BHU.” That is what economists, when they want to be polite, call a substitution away from the problem you cannot afford, toward the one you can ignore.

The Elephant in the Room — Where Did Last Year’s Money Actually Go?

Let’s cut to the chase.

The Annual Development Plan for 2026–27 is Rs. 524 billion. On the surface, handsome. Until you clock that last year’s ADP was Rs. 600 billion. In simple Pashto: the government is cutting development spending while inflation is hill-climbing over every roti and litre of petrol. De naoza che sta de khpalo che ke da ghruna warze ke na watai — the new axe that cuts others cannot cut its own handle.

But it gets worse. The budget documents themselves say that completing the existing development portfolio will take Rs. 2.448 trillion, spread over a 7.7-year throw-forward. That, dear reader, is not a plan. That is a wishlist with a price tag nobody currently at the treasury bench can pay. Every fresh 1,200 new project announced this year is simply a longer queue for the next finance minister to clear — probably in 2031, in another shiny speech.

On the Assembly floor, Opposition Leader Dr. Ibadullah pointed out the obvious: more than Rs. 2.4 trillion needed to close ongoing schemes, and yet over 1,200 brand-new ones added to the pile. ANP’s Mian Iftikhar Hussain — a man whose moustache has seen more finance ministers than most of us have — called it “wordplay and statistical melodrama.” When seasoned parliamentarians lose their humour, the citizenry is usually not far behind. Then comes the debt story — the one nobody reads out loud in the press release.

KP’s total debt was Rs. 150 billion in 2013, accumulated patiently over 66 years of provincial life. Today? Rs. 951 billion. In a single recent month, the debt clock ticked up by another Rs. 5.5 billion. As of March 2026, the provincial debt stock stood at Rs. 809.74 billion. That is not borrowing anymore; that is taking out a mortgage on your daughter’s wedding and your son’s first job. The World Bank’s own review of KP’s public finances has been saying this in measured English for over a decade: the province suffers from chronic gaps in turning money into outcomes — allocations on paper leak before they reach the classroom, the clinic, or the road. When the invisible hand is busy emptying the bucket, pouring in more rupees is, in industry terms, an exercise in optimism.

PTI’s Report Card — Progress, or a Photo Album?

PTI has held the steering wheel in KP for three straight terms — thirteen years. Fair enough — let’s mark the report card honestly.

They delivered the Peshawar BRT — and tabled another Rs. 7.5 billion for it this year. They earmarked Rs. 35 billion for the merged districts. They have inaugurated shiny health facilities in places like Landi Kotal. None of this is fake; brick-and-mortar real.

But here is the uncomfortable truth that even government-friendly analysts whisper at hujra gatherings: about 80% of the ADP this year is going to ongoing projects, only 20% to genuinely new initiatives. In plainer words, most of the money is just paying the bill for things started years ago. The “development” pitch has, by necessity, become an incomplete-projects completion pitch. That is not bold new ground; that is finishing last year’s homework.

And then the merged districts — the FATA legacy. The lawmakers from these constituencies have complained, on the record, that both the federal and the provincial governments have, in their own words, “turned away” from them. The promised 3% of the divisible pool remains unsettled. The provincial government’s answer: we have spent more in merged districts than we have received from the Centre. Two ledgers, two stories. Someone’s calculator is not balancing. In Pashto, “Da sta pa se, da sta pa se” — this side says this, that side says that — and the only person who pays the bill is the one standing in the queue at the Tehsil office.

Then, refreshingly, a confession. Even former Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur publicly owned up that previous PTI governments erred by not allocating development funds fairly to opposition constituencies. A chef admitting he burned the biryani after you’ve already eaten it. Honest? Yes. Useful? Only for the next election.

What’s Actually in It for the Common Aadmi?

This is where the budget either meets the biryani or quietly walks out the back door.

The Ground Reality (the part nobody photographs):

At the fruit mandi, Zakir Khan, a fruit-seller of twenty winters, said it simply: “Bhala, the issue isn’t the Rs. 45,000 wage — it’s the inspector who never comes to the factory gate to enforce it.” And Zakir bhai is not wrong. The labour-force-survey evidence on Pakistan’s wage floor is brutally consistent: minimum-wage compliance is weakest among women, informal workers, the less-educated, and contract employees — in other words, exactly the people for whom the wage matters most. After the 18th Amendment, provincial enforcement capacity for labour laws has, if anything, eroded rather than strengthened — the wage ceiling nominally rises, but the real pay-slip pay-out has slipped in several provinces. And where compliance does bite, the gains are statistically modest and disproportionately captured by men, leaving the gender pay gap all but intact.

At the wheat field, Riaz Khan, a small farmer, hailed the agriculture mention but warned: “Announcements do not irrigate fields. Diesel subsidy, certified seed, tubewell electricity — these do.”

Meanwhile, the silent tax that bites every household — inflation — is back and roaring. May 2026 inflation printed at 11.7%, almost triple the 3.5% a year ago. The Sensitive Price Index — the weekly pulse of the kitchen — is running at 15.28% per week. Tomatoes have their own ministry now, atta is on strike, and transport fares never tire of going up.

Let me translate. If your salary goes up 7% but inflation runs at 11.7%, you are demonstrably poorer at year-end, not richer. The government is, with great ceremony, putting Rs. 5 in the right pocket and quietly slipping the hand into the left pocket. Na sir diya tala, na hath diya kunji — neither the lock nor the key is in your hand.

The Bigger Picture — Federal Math That Doesn’t Add Up

KP is budgeting inside a federal straightjacket of its own. The province expects to receive about Rs. 1.584 trillion from the federal government — Rs. 1.24 trillion in tax assignments and Rs. 139 billion under the war-on-terror/security allocation. Gentle irony: provinces are simultaneously projected to transfer roughly Rs. 1.04 trillion back to the federal government under Article 164. Yes — the provinces borrow from the Centre to pay salaries and lend to the Centre to retire federal debt. The old fiscal cycle keeps spinning — one hand asks, the other gives, both hands belong to the same suit.

The federal Public Sector Development Programme sits at Rs. 1.126 trillion, with the usual knife visiting it every quarter. Pakistan’s GDP grew 3.7% in FY2025–26 — below the 4.2% target. Economic size: Rs. 126.9 trillion. Per-capita income: $1,901. Statistically respectable. Socially, almost meaningless — roughly 40% of Pakistanis remain multidimensionally poor. A tide that lifts yachts but not fishing boats is not a tide worth celebrating in a fisherman’s village.

The Verdict — Hope, Hype, or Just Habit?          

Let me be blunt, the way a friend at a dhaaba should be. The KP Budget 2026–27 is ambitious. It talks about education, health, security, welfare — and yes, there are genuinely good ideas sitting inside it (the Health Card scale-up, the Kisan card, the e-bike scheme for the cold-polluted cities). But let’s not confuse ambition with delivery. Ba soorat khwand, ba nafaqat rozi — looks fine on paper, shows up empty at the kitchen. FBR tax-revenue growth has been softer than promised, large federal borrowing from the State Bank still ticks in the background, project-disbursement cycles crawl, and the bleeding of public-sector enterprises has not been staunched. KP cannot fix the whole picture, but it can fix its own house, and that’s exactly where citizens judge it.

The development slice is thinner. The debt clock is ticking in double-time. Old schemes remain half-built while brand-new ones are announced with great fan-fare. Inflation is silently taxing whatever pay rise was promised. And the common citizen — the one stretching the atta, paying the school van, negotiating the doctor’s fee — is left wondering if any of this number-jugglery will actually reach her hand. So let me ask the rude questions the press conference politely avoided:

Have you consulted the fruit-seller, or only the file?

Have you consulted the farmer, or only the fertiliser lobby?

Have you consulted the daily wager, or only the contractor’s cousin?

Have you consulted the mother who cannot afford the syrup for her child?     

If this government can actually deliver — if the Rs. 45,000 wage is enforced at the factory gate, if the Health Card reaches the BHU at the end of the katcha road, if the 72 model schools actually improve literacy, if the development projects are completed in time and within cost, if the merged districts finally get their 3% fair share— then, perhaps, KP will move from Khushhal on paper to Khushhal in the kitchen and the field.

If not, then the 2026–27 volume will quietly join the long shelf of “wordplay and statistical manipulation” exercises — and the people of KP, as they always do, will remember. Because in Pashto, we say it cleanly: “Da watan da khair daltawo nawe” — the well-wisher of the homeland is not born every day. Budgets, in the end, are not really about columns of rupees and percentages.

They are about the atta, the school fee, the hospital slip, the diesel bill, the dignity of a daily wager — and the one stubborn question of whether the poor were honestly thought of when the cap on the briefcase was quietly closed.