K-P Budget: Major funds for WSSP, road network

Rs 4 billion earmarked for 89 water, sanitation schemes

PESHAWAR: To assure accessibility to water and proper sanitation for all strata of society, the Khyber-Pakhutnkhwa government has earmarked Rs4.15 billion.

While addressing the budget session at the provincial assembly on Tuesday, K-P Minister for Finance Muzaffar Said stated clean drinking water was the constitutional right of every citizen of the country.

He said in a bid to improve water and sanitation services in the province, the government has allocated more than Rs4 billion for 89 projects. Of them, 81 are ongoing projects with an allocation of Rs3.27 billion, while eight are new.

During his speech, the finance minister proposed the construction of gravity-based water supply schemes in K-P. The same project was proposed in the previous budget, but work was yet to be initiated.



Other proposed projects in the financial statement included

solarisation of 200 existing water schemes and rehabilitation of supply channels to disaster affected areas. The restoration of nonfunctional or damaged schemes were also part of the budget.

To improve the performance of Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar, the government allocated Rs2 billion to establish six divisional headquarters across the province.

Muzaffar Said, in his budget speech, added the establishment of WSSP headquarters will improve services. The budget also proposed installation of water filtration plants in various cities of the province under the Clean Drinking Water for All (CDWA) project.



The government, however, seemed less interested in improving transport services in the city as an amount of only Rs34.401 million was allocated to the sector.

The proposed projects included purchasing land for a truck terminal in Peshawar and transport inspection stations in K-P.

Said stated special attention was being given to the existing road infrastructure as it was in a deplorable state. For this purpose, the minister said over Rs10.7 billion was allocated for at least 330 projects. Of them, 312 are ongoing projects with an allocation of Rs9.7 billion and 18 are new with an allocation of Rs1 billion.

The budget documents stated major projects would be completed in the road sector including the construction of Mankial Road from Changla Gali to Islamabad and the construction of a new bridge on Khazana bypass over Panjkora River in Lower Dir. The budget documents further proposed the rehabilitation of provincial roads and construction of the Swat Expressway.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2016.