Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has directed the Planning & Development Department to prioritise development schemes in consultation with the provincial departments by March 24, 2015, so that they could be funded accordingly. He also fixed April 15, 2015, as the cut-off date to release funds for the development schemes related to the Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2014-15.
Presiding over a meeting regarding the allocation, releases and expenditures of the ADP 2014-15 here at the CM House, he stressed over the importance of ensuring that quality material is used during the development of the projects.
ACS (Development) Waseem Ahmed told the meeting that the current ADP stood at Rs. 168 billion, including Rs. 143 billion for provincial provisions, and Rs. 25 billion for district projects. “Under the provincial ADP of Rs. 143 billion 2,937 schemes have been taken up, of them 1658 schemes are on-going and 1,279 are new,” he said.
Out of Rs. 90.065 billion allocated for the on-going 1,658 schemes, the finance department has released over Rs. 65.825 billion, and Rs. 41.4 billion of the same have already been utilised. The utilisation comes to 61 per cent of the overall amount. For 1,279 new schemes the finance department released Rs. 4.133 billion, they have utilised Rs. 1.859 billion, and the utilisation percentage rests at 45 per cent.
324 schemes are to be completed by June 2015, for which Rs. 12951.548 million are required, against which the government has released Rs. 10497.814 million; however, the fund utilisation remains Rs. 6689.879 million.
Minister Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah told the meeting that Rs. 3 billion were actually allocated for the subsidisation of the wheat. However, due to weak policy making at the centre wheat was instead imported from Ukraine, and Sindh suffered huge financial losses and it was forced to reduce the price of the wheat lying in the warehouses.
Moreover, the Sindh government gave another subsidy of Rs. 12 per kg to bring down the prices of sugarcanes acquired through private sugar mills and in this way incurred another burden of Rs. 10billion.
The chief minister asked to provide full funds for the 324 schemes scheduled to be completed by end of June 2015. The schemes, which are to be completed by the end of the next financial year, would be given second priority.
He said he would not compromise on the quality of the government projects.
