Three months to go K-P yet to release Rs19b under district ADB

Disbursed Rs14 billion out of Rs33 billion in nine months

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has yet to release Rs19 billion funds, out of the total Rs33 billion, allocated for the district Annual Development Programme (ADP) with only three months to go before the fiscal year 2016-17 ends.

The K-P government released Rs14 billion on a quarterly basis in nine months of the current fiscal, which had been completely utilised under the district ADP, it was learnt on Thursday.

However, the utilisation against allocated funds dropped down from 80 per cent in 2015-16 to 43 per cent in the ongoing financial year. Last fiscal, the provincial government had allocated over Rs30 billion, of which over Rs15 billion had been released.

The mid-review budget documents compiled by the K-P’s Planning and Development Department stated that the local government spent 100 per cent of the Rs14 billion released during the nine months of the ongoing financial year.

The mid-year review report, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, stated the provincial government had so far spent 60 per cent of the released Rs2 billion allocated for the local government sector which is separate from the district ADP’s allocation. So far only 43 per cent of the total allocated budget for local government sector had been released.

The documents showed the budget released for various districts and the funds utilised by them. The budget was released for a total of 130 sub sectors in districts and tehsils of K-P.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2017.