by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal
Since the earliest flickers of my conscious memory, I have seen the several federal budgets of Pakistan presented with much fanfare and anticipation each June. It was a season not unlike a grand festival, awaited with equal parts anxiety and hope—especially by the business community and government servants. The former looked to it with a calculating eye; which commodities would bear the new burden of tax, what levies might shift the market tides in their favour. The latter, more modestly, wondered how many increments would be awarded to their salaries and pensions. The days leading up to the budget were filled with speculation, and for some, strategic preparation. There were traders who, by mere virtue of stocked goods in their warehouses, found themselves richer overnight, simply because the new duties declared from the treasury benches inflated the prices of their inventory.
In those days, the post-budget press conference of the finance minister held an air of solemnity and consequence. Every word, every phrase, was weighed and measured by industrialists and economists alike. In the National Assembly, thick budget booklets were distributed—heavy tomes filled with numbers and aspirations. Few members of the House had the patience or interest to consult these volumes, but they were a treasure trove for journalists and parliamentary researchers, who would mine them for days and weeks to follow.
Time, however, has galloped on. The budget—once an exercise in delicate statecraft and public sentiment—is now a behemoth whose size and scale are met with little more than weary nods. Gone are the days when a slight increase of a few paisas in a commodity’s price would provoke spirited debates and media frenzies. There was once a time when even a marginal adjustment in the cost of everyday items would be met with fiery protest or passionate defense. That innocence—or perhaps that vigilance—seems lost.
In a recent sitting with the esteemed Mr. Naeem Siddiqui, the former Librarian of the National Assembly and a walking encyclopedia of parliamentary chronicles, I was treated to memories of a different age—when budgets were not merely fiscal instruments but human stories. He recalled an episode from the Ayub Khan era, when Mr. Muhammad Shoaib served as the Finance Minister. During the budget debate, a Bengali member named Mr. Afsaruddin Ahmad Khan stood and raised what seemed a minor but symbolic grievance. He declared in the House that Coca-Cola, which had hitherto sold at 50 paise, was now being sold for 53 paise. “You may not know,” he said to the minister, “because you drink it from government-hosted tables. We drink it from our own pockets.” It was an unpretentious statement, but it carried the force of truth. In those days, market rates did not fluctuate daily, and when they did, it was usually the state that prompted the change.
Finance Minister Shoaib, perhaps flustered by the unexpected specificity of the critique, replied with a modest admission. “Only one item, the postcard, which was priced at three paise, has now been raised to five.” Yet even this small increase prompted a strong reaction. When the cost of a Bottle of kerosene oil rose from 25 paisa to 28 paisa, a trade unionist and labour leader from East Pakistan named Mehboob-ul-Haq voiced his concern with notable eloquence. He reminded the House that such correspondence was not merely commercial, but a vital thread in the social and emotional fabric of the country. “Those who send letters in envelopes can afford them; the poor rely on postcards,” he remarked.
There was another instance where kerosene oil—a staple in the homes of the common man—saw a nominal increase of three paise. Again, Mehboob-ul-Haq rose with a clarity of thought rarely heard today. He pointed out that in the dimly lit huts of East Pakistan, where kerosene lamps were the only source of light, this increase would extinguish not just flame but hope. “When the lamps do not burn,” he warned, “the millions spent on family planning will go to waste.”The Finance Minister was convinced by their arguments and withdrew the 3 paise increase.
How stark is the contrast when one compares the scope and scale of past budgets with the fiscal leviathan we now encounter annually. In the days of Ayub Khan, the federal budget hovered modestly around Rs. 2 to 3 billion. During Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure, it gradually crossed Rs. 20 billion as nationalisation expanded the state’s role. Under General Zia-ul-Haq, the figure rose to around Rs. 100 billion, reflecting a growing state machinery and an economy adjusting to regional conflicts and foreign aid.
With the democratic wave in the 1990s, the budgets under Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto saw expenditure climb above Rs. 300 billion, while General Pervez Musharraf’s era ushered in a phase of economic liberalisation, with budgets swelling beyond Rs. 1 trillion. By the time the Pakistan Peoples Party concluded its tenure in 2013, the federal budget had crossed Rs. 3 trillion. During Imran Khan’s government, this figure surged past Rs. 7 trillion, largely due to debt servicing, defence allocations, and pandemic-related fiscal strains.
Now, in the present year, the federal budget has breached Rs. 18 trillion—a number once unimaginable. Of this, debt servicing alone consumes over Rs. 9.5 trillion, a tragic testament to the weight of past borrowings. Defence allocations hover near Rs. 2.1 trillion, subsidies amount to nearly Rs. 1.4 trillion, and the development budget, unfortunately, receives a considerably smaller portion than what is required for long-term national growth. Salaries, pensions, and grants to provinces complete the fiscal portrait. And yet, despite this massive outlay, the common man finds little comfort in the figures. The street remains restless, the shopkeeper anxious, the salaried class disillusioned.
These recollections and comparisons are not merely nostalgic footnotes from a bygone era. They are a mirror held up to our current reality. The budget of today, with its astronomical figures and technical jargon, may well be more expansive, more complex—but is it more humane? Do its architects sit with the same sensitivity to the small household, the evening lamp, or the postage-stamped letter from a village to a city?
We must ask ourselves whether the Federal Budget, in all its ambition, still serves the people it was meant to uplift. Or has it become a ritual of figures and forecasts, divorced from the realities that once made every paisa count? It is not a matter of arithmetic alone, but of conscience. When a government raises taxes, it ought to also raise the trust of the people. When it announces relief, it must ensure its reach is not limited to paper but felt in the life of the common citizen.
To recall those earnest debates of the past is not to yearn for simpler times, but to remind our present of the dignity of governance. Let the budget not be a ceremonial exercise cloaked in numbers but a document of national intent—one that speaks, as it once did, to the hearts of those who light lamps in the darkness.
