Business

Rs727 billion earmarked for development programme

Meagre funds will result in slowdown of work, increase in completion period of projects

Shahbaz Rana June 10, 2022

PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:

The coalition government on Friday unveiled an election year development programme of 1,173 schemes but with allocation of only Rs727 billion, which would slow down work on existing schemes and increase the completion period of newly added projects.

The allocation of Rs727 billion for the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2022-23 is only Rs177 billion, or 32%, more than the reduced size of the PSDP for the outgoing fiscal year.

The government has envisaged financing of Rs73 billion by the private sector in the next fiscal year.

The PSDP book showed that the coalition government has added roughly Rs7.1 trillion worth of 1,173 schemes in the next year’s development programme. With a meagre allocation of Rs727 billion, it will take on an average 10 years to complete this development portfolio.

The inclusion of new schemes and inadequate allocation for the existing ones highlights the imprudent policies of the new government, which would also cause losses to the exchequer due to the escalation in their cost.

The government has proposed allocation of Rs70 billion for the parliamentarians’ schemes. This is contrary to the austerity drive as most of these expenses are wasted due to the lack of proper checks and controls on these schemes.

COMMENTS (1)

test | 2 years ago | Reply Industrial Manufacturing Agriculture and IT should be the priorities not metros or BRT s. I am not against them but taking loans just to create roads bridges BRT s doesn t make any sense at all. Already you have 140 billion usd external debt. That will go up and up until your priority do not become industrial manufacturing agriculture and IT. I know they are doing this for vote bank. But economy will suffer very much from development as it is not in a position for that 727 billion rather that should be used by govt to setup new industrial units of auto manufacturing electronics manufacturing defence equipment manufacturing and medical equipment manufacturing. It should also be used to establish agriculture research centers for better and more production of agricultural products. It should also be used to setup new IT and engineering Universities or even use to improve the current education system in our country.

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