- P&D chairman clears longstanding backlog, grants approval to 38 development schemes with an estimated cost of Rs 104b
The newly-posted Planning and Development (P&D) Department chairman has given a go-ahead to a number of schemes facing ‘political victimisation’ of previous regimes for years and causing loss of billions to the public exchequer, Pakistan Today has learnt.
P&D Chairman Sohail Ahmad only after a few days of assuming office cleared a backlog of development schemes which were stuck for years due to ‘preference’ of one political regime or the other.
Approval was given to around 38 schemes of various sectors with an estimated cost of Rs 104 billion. This is an astonishing figure considering the routine working of the P&D where neither so many schemes nor such a huge figure has been approved previously in one go.
The major chunk of the amount was meant for two schemes which would be funded by the federal government: Punjab National Maternal Newborn Child Health (MNCH) Program at the cost of Rs 3.5 billion and Punjab National Program for Family Planning & Primary Healthcare (the Lady Health Workers Program) at the cost of Rs 53 billion.
It also included many ‘crucial’ schemes of the Health Department which were put on the back burner for years because of ‘political neglect’.
The following projects with their respective costs have been approved: purchase of MRI System for the Children’s Hospital at a cost of Rs 218 million, establishment of Fatima Jinnah Institute of Dental Sciences at Rs 3.4 billion, construction of Sheikh Zayed Medical Complex Rahim Yar Khan at Rs 1.4 billion, construction of DHQ Hospital Narowal at Rs 628 million, establishment of Emergency Services Academy Lahore at the cost of Rs 908 million and Integrated Reproductive Maternal Newborn & Child Health & Nutrition Program at the cost of Rs 9.8billion. Other major projects involve construction of roads in various parts of the province.
A senior officer on the condition of anonymity said, “No scheme can make it to the ADP without a political push and the same is required for its completion. Every new regime as per practice puts its predecessors’ projects on the backburner, not realising that the funds spent on all such projects will be wasted, besides inflation will have to be taken into account in case someone decides to complete it again. Even now inflated cost of all these schemes have to be borne by the government.”
P&D chairman said the PDWP meeting was not held for the last two months and the backlog was accumulated. “Around 60 percent schemes were revised, in which the inflated costs of around 25 percent on average had to be factored in,” he said. To a question, he said the approval has been given to schemes in the ADP and he did not want to comment on the previous regime.