Islamabad: Pakistan coalition government has endorsed an 18 per cent increase in defence spending to over Rs 2.5 trillion in the next budget due to tensions with India, according to a media report on Tuesday.
The government is set to unveil the 2025-26 budget in the first week of the next month ahead of the start of the new fiscal year from July 1.
India and Pakistan have witnessed heightened tensions since the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
The Express Tribune reported that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) delegation, led by its chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his economic team to discuss the budget matters on Monday.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led government shared roughly Rs 17.5 trillion worth of new budget framework with its key ally, the PPP, which agreed to 18 per cent increase in the defence outlay.
There was a consensus between the PML-N and the PPP to increase the defence budget due to the recent wave of tensions with India, the newspaper said, quoting sources.