Ministry withdraws Rs70b Covid-related scheme

The federal government’s response to mitigate the impact of a deadly respiratory disease on the lives of people remains slow as it has not yet been able to approve about half-a-billion-dollar or Rs70 billion Covid-19 project.

The Ministry of Planning and Development on Wednesday withdrew the Covid-19 Responsive and other Natural Calamities Control Programme costing Rs70 billion at the eleventh hour due to the lack of consensus among its officials.

The project had been presented - for the second time - for approval of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), chaired by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Jehanzeb Khan. The CDWP approved two other coronavirus-related projects worth Rs8.2 billion to support the education system in Pakistan under the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Rs70 billion programme had been conceived to provide support for provinces to mitigate the impact of the deadly respiratory disease. The CDWP had cleared the Covid-19 umbrella project in June this year but it was again brought before the forum due to some changes in PC-I of the project.

Planning Minister Asad Umar has warned of the second wave of Covid-19 as cases of virus infection and the death toll have started increasing gradually.

Pakistan had also launched an appeal for loans of $595 million to combat the impact of Covid-19 on businesses and lives of people. But utilisation of that money too remained slow, although the Asian Development Bank and World Bank approved sufficient loans.

The planning ministry had decided to amend PC-I of the Rs70 billion project due to objections raised by provinces over funding modalities. Provincial governments demanded that the federal government pick the full cost of the initiative.

It was subsequently decided that PC-Is of sub-projects should be prepared for priority areas like improving health facilities at district headquarters, tehsil headquarters, improvement in public health surveillance, national programme for water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and national programme for improvement in local livelihood infrastructure. A health package for southern districts of Balochistan was also made part of the Covid-19 responsive project.

It was decided that the National Finance Commission would be approached for funds distribution among provincial governments and the Islamabad Capital Territory instead of the earlier decision of first-come-first-served basis. In a meeting held last week, it was decided that provinces would have to submit their PC-Is within two weeks or else their share would lapse.

An amount of Rs40 billion has been proposed for the national programme to improve health facilities at district headquarters and tehsil headquarters.

Another sum of Rs5 billion has been proposed for public health surveillance, Rs20 billion for national programme for water sanitation and hygiene and Rs5 billion for the improvement in local livelihood infrastructure.

Other projects

The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training presented two schemes in the CDWP meeting. The Pandemic Response Effectiveness Project (PREP) for Covid-19 worth Rs4.9 billion was approved, according to an official statement.

The objective of the project, which would be completed in 24 months, is to prepare and respond to the Covid-19 pandemic to address the significant disruptive impact that keeps children, teachers and administrators out of school for a prolonged period.

The project will focus on supporting schools and parents in distance learning activities, remote learning from TV/radio broadcast, virtual network and policy changes and their implementation to increase the capacity of education system to deal with future emergencies that contribute to school closures.

The second project, Response Recovery Resilience in Education Programming during Covid-19, worth Rs3.3 billion was also approved by the CDWP.

The completion period of the project is 20 months and it will support short and medium-term response and recovery needs under the Covid-19 pandemic, while establishing technical and institutional capacity to build a stronger and more resilient education system, with focus on the disadvantaged population in lagging areas in all provinces.

This project does not have fund allocation in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2020-21, although its concept was cleared before presentation of the budget in parliament.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2020.

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