As a result of the severe financial crunch faced by the country and the fast approaching election year, the Sindh government has been compelled to drop at least 1323 new development schemes of various departments while prioritizing just the ongoing ones, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Interestingly, the dropping of the hundreds of uplift schemes worth around Rs 50 billion is likely to bring a serious damage to the leaders of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the upcoming general elections. Well-placed sources told Pakistan Today, that the federal government had been delaying the release of funds which were approved for Sindh including Rs 15 billion that resulted in the financial crisis presently faced by the province while funds worth Rs 65 billion could also not be released by the center for federally-funded Annual Development Program (ADP) 2012-13.
As the release of funds had been delayed by the federal government, the policymakers of Sindh had decided to drop all the new schemes included in the budget 2012-13 and priority would only be given to those schemes that have reached near completion, sources added.
In this regard, the Planning and Development (P&D) department of Sindh also sought from all the departments a detailed list containing present status of the development schemes so that smooth and timely funding could be ensured for their completion.
The officials of the P&D and the finance departments recently held a meeting which was also attended by other senior officials that reviewed the Annual Development Program (ADP) 2012-13 and decided that 1326 new schemes should be dropped until the ongoing projects were completed.
The sources said funds worth Rs 161 billion had been earmarked for 2611 schemes in the ADP 2012-13 out of which around Rs 110 billion were earmarked only for the ongoing schemes and the remaining funds were kept aside for new projects. There are more than 250 schemes nearing completion with the help of smooth funding of Rs 50 billion.