Let’s beef up the public sector

The Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) on Thursday finalized a total national development outlay of Rs 825.2 billion, with federal component of Rs 350 billion and provincial share of Rs 475 billion for the next fiscal year 2012-13.
The committee also decided that priority will be given to complete on-going projects, while new un-approved projects will be discouraged as they may cause thin spread resource allocation resulting in time and cost overrun.
Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Chairman Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq chaired the meeting. He said the proposed PSDP for the next fiscal year has been prepared in line with the growth strategy framework and to achieve the government’s nine points agenda to ensure inclusive growth, reducing poverty, achieving MDGs, minimizing wastages, ensuring balanced development, food, water and energy security. The proposed PSDP also articulates the division of subjects between provincial and federal governments after passage of 18th constitutional amendment.
APCC was informed that the next year plan envisages a GDP target of 4.3 percent which has been fixed under the growth strategy. The targets will be achieved through improvement in productivity and competitiveness, reforms in the markets, promoting cities as regional clusters, improve connectivity, reforming the civil service, institutions and PSEs, harnessing the potential of youth and embarking on result based management.
In the total proposed PSDP 2012-13, the size of foreign assistance has been estimated at Rs 120 billion. New schemes for capacity building or for construction of housing and devolved subject’s projects have been excluded. Federal ministries and divisions have formulated their own development priorities while remaining in their approved ceilings and adopting guidelines of the Planning Commission and Finance Division. The emphasis has been placed on completion of on-going priority projects.
While reviewing PSDP 2011-12, it was informed that no reduction in current year’s PSDP size was made to help restore GDP growth. As such, the National Development Outlays 2011-12 remained at Rs 730 billion. It was informed that foreign assistance increased than the budgeted allocation of Rs 39 billion to Rs 90 billion.
The releases to the executing agencies have been more streamlined so as to reach the project authorities on a fast track basis. So far, 91 percent of the PSDP allocations have been released. Emphasis was placed on timely completion of projects by making special efforts. About 174 projects would likely to be completed during the current fiscal year.
Review of Annual Plan 2011-12 and proposed Annual Plan 2012-13 was presented by Joint Chief Economist, Planning and Development Division Sohail Rehan. APCC was informed that performance during the current fiscal year was satisfactory. The GDP growth is expected to be 3.7 percent as against 3 percent achieved during the last year. Despite floods, the agriculture sector has performed better and major crops including cotton, rice, maize, and sugarcane witnessed sizable growth over the last year. The Wheat crop, however, is expected to be around 23.2 million tons, which is 2 million tons less than the last year production.
APCC was also informed that CPI and food inflation are easing down. CPI inflation is expected to be around 11 percent during the year as against 13.7 percent during the previous year. Similarly, food inflation has witnessed a big reduction from 18 percent in the last year to 11.5 percent in the current year. The large-scale manufacturing has shown some improvement. The external sector, especially export is expected to be behind target, while worker remittances have shown positive growth.