Govt to shelve development projects not started yet

Finance dept will not release funds for projects which were not started in 2017

KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to abandon several development projects for which no funds have been released up till now. Work on these projects will be stopped by the end of December and no funds will be released for these projects. There are many projects of different departments under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for which not a penny has been spent so far.

On the directives of Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, the finance department has written a letter to the planning and development department stating that the projects which have not been started will stand cancelled after December 31, 2017 and no funds will be released for them in the coming year.

The letter states that many departments have not spent anything from the funds allocated for development projects under the ADP. The letter also referred to a meeting chaired by the CM to examine the ADP in which the CM had expressed displeasure over non-utilisation of the development budget. After the meeting, the CM directed the finance department to cancel all such development projects on which work could not be initiated by the end of the current year.



The provincial government had allocated Rs244 billion for the ADP in the budget for current fiscal year.

Many departments have displayed lethargic attitude in the utilisation of development funds. One of such departments is the works and services department which received budget of Rs26 billion for development. However, the department has only spent Rs7.5 billion in the first half of the fiscal year.

Similarly, Rs21 billion was allocated for projects of the education department, of which, the department has only managed to spend Rs2 billion so far. The situation is more or less similar with the local government department which failed to start many projects with a hefty budget of Rs28 billion and could only utilise Rs3 billion so far. The public health engineering department also could not start several projects with its budget of Rs9 billion.



Every year, development budget worth billions of rupees lapses due to mismanagement and lack of will of the concerned departments. According to an estimate, funds worth Rs400 billion have lapsed in total during the nine-year tenure of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government. Owing to the negligence of the bureaucracy, dozens of projects will be marked off from the yearly development programme by the end of December.