Government’s tall funds utilization claims fall flat
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The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government failed to utilize dominant portion of its Annual Development Program (ADP) as Rs97.75 billion were spent against the total estimated ADP size of Rs317 billion during the current fiscal year.
Like the rest of the sectors the funds meant for development remain largely underutilized in the current fiscal year 2020-21 too despite the tall claims of the PTI government who takes credit for the allocation of large amounts for development and non-development sectors each year. Against the total estimates of Rs317 billion the Finance Department actually released Rs181.29 billion but the utilization was of just Rs97.75 billion in the province.
For the settled districts of the province around Rs221 billion were allocated in which Rs139.61 billion were released and just Rs72.87 billion used. By the same token for the newly merged tribal districts an ADP of Rs95.93 billion had been announced in which Rs41.68 billion were released and Rs24.99 billion actually spent.
“Around Rs2.96 billion in Agriculture sector, Rs110.93 million of Auqaf, Religious and Minorities Affairs, Rs240.88 million of Board of Revenue, Rs4.69 billion of district ADP, Rs2.20 billion of Irrigation Department, Rs3.7billion of Elementary and Secondary Education, Rs1.93 billion of Energy and Power Sector, Rs9.2 million of Environment, Rs2.5 billion of Forest Department, Rs5.68 billion of Health Sector, Rs3.3 billion of Higher Education, Rs1.1 billion of Home Department, Rs2 billion of Industry Department, Local Government Rs3 billion, Multi Sector Development Rs10.39 billion, Rs13.80 billion for Roads Development, Sports and Tourism Rs2.40 billion, Urban Development Rs2 billion and Rs7 billion of Water Supply were utilized in the first ten months of the fiscal year.
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In the tribal districts Rs2 billion of the Agriculture Sector and Rs10 billion of district ADP could not be spent.
“For the past seven years the PTI government has failed to fully utilize its development funds in the province and this thing is expected to remain the same in the next three years of this government,” said an official of the government, saying that the Finance Department doesn’t release the allocated funds and whenever a portion of it is released it remains utilized.
“Initially the bureaucracy was reluctant to use the funds in order to avoid the corruption charges but afterwards the government stopped released all he allocation funds and it became a norm in the PTI government that neither funds are released nor utilized fully,” he said.
Due to the this attitude development schemes could be completed or even started.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 5th, 2021.