ISLAMABAD - The beleaguered government might face an economic jolt in the months to come, as Pakistan is reportedly unlikely to receive $800 million from Etisalat against privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL), which was budgeted for the current financial year 2011-2012, it was learnt on Thursday.
Sources told The Nation that the government might not get due amount from Etisalat in the ongoing fiscal year, which would enhance the problems of the economic managers of the country to restrict the budget deficit to 4.7 per cent of the GDP at the end of June 2012. “The government had budgeted $800 million from Etisalat for the current fiscal year but the amount is unlikely to materialise that will put adverse impact on fiscal side”, said an official source.
“The government had projected to receive $2.5 billion from different heads included Etisalat, auction of 3G licenses and Coalition Support Fund (CSF)” in the ongoing financial year”, said another official. He was of the view that the government would have to do something if it failed to get one of the above three sources otherwise fiscal deficit would shoot up. 
On the other hand, according to media reports, the government is facing problems in fixing new dates for the auction of 3G licenses and one of the possibilities is that its auction dates might be finalized in June. The government is expecting to generate almost Rs 75 billion through these auctions, which would help in restricting the widening budget deficit.
The economic experts believed that government would once again depend on banking borrowings that already went up by 57 per cent during the current financial year if it failed to get amount from Etisalat. According the report of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the government had borrowed Rs 916 billion from banking sector that included Rs 689 billion from commercial and Rs 227 billion from central bank during July-March period of the present fiscal year.
Sources said that every possible effort was made by the economic and political team of the government last fiscal year to ensure disbursement of outstanding dues on account of PTCL privatisation with the objective of reducing the fiscal deficit but without success.
The Nation tried to contact Secretary Finance Abdul Wajid Rana to take his comment on the said issue but he did not respond to the call nor replied to the text message.