Sindh receives Rs76.2b less than its share from divisible pool

Chief minister wants proposals for new ADP to be public welfare-friendly

KARACHI: Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has directed the planning and development and finance department teams to prepare proposals for the new Annual Development Programme (ADP) and the next year's budget so that a true uplift programme and public-welfare budget could be prepared.

He said this while presiding over a joint meeting of the planning and development and finance departments on Thursday. Planning and Development Chairperson Mohammad Waseem and Finance Secretary Hassan Naqvi attended the meeting with their respective teams.

Naqvi briefed the chief minister on the federal transfers during the current financial year and said that the Centre had committed to providing Rs493.2 billion against revenue assignments to Sindh. The last eight months' releases add up to Rs328.8 billion, against which the provincial government has received only Rs252.8 billion, indicating a shortfall of Rs76.2 billion, said Naqvi.

He said that the federal government had committed to providing Rs54.7 billion in straight transfers to Sindh. Sindh's eight-month share comes to Rs36.4 billion against which the receipts are Rs36.6 billion.



Talking about the Octroi Zila Tax share of Rs13.3 billion, Naqvi said Sindh's eight-month share is Rs8.8 billion but the Centre has released only Rs6.8 billion. The chief minister said the provincial government was duly providing necessary funds to its local bodies and directed the finance secretary to speak to the federal finance secretary to get the remaining funds released.

He directed him to collect the provincial receipts and target so that necessary preparation for the next budget could be made.

Giving guidelines for the next budget, the chief minister said that it should be public-friendly and priority should be given to education, health, irrigation and public health engineering. Ongoing schemes would be given more funds so that they could be completed.

Waseem said that special education has an allocation of Rs213 million for its various schemes, against which the government has released Rs47.993 million but the expenditures are zero. Similarly, the forest and wildlife department has also failed to utilise its Rs330.9 million allocation. Information technology and some other departments have also failed to spend their allocated funds, Waseem told the chief minister.

Shah directed the chief secretary to seek explanations from the departments that have failed to utilise their allocated funds.