The Punjab Government has planned to formulate its annual development program for 2017-18 in the light of new local government system.
Punjab Planning and Development Chairman Jahanzeb Khan stated this while presiding over the consultation session for the ADP 2017-18 and the mid-year review of ADP 2016-17 at the Planning and Development Complex, Lahore.
“No block allocations would be made while specific allocations for development schemes would be considered. Government’s flagships initiatives are being properly funded,” he said.
Provincial P&D Secretary Iftikhar Ali Sahoo, all administrative secretaries from the Punjab government, members of the P&D board, P&D joint chief economist, PERI Director and other officials also attended the session.
Addressing the participants, P&D Chairman Jahanzeb Khan said that Punjab P&D had scheduled the mid-year review of Annual Development Program 2016-17 from 16th January to 20th January 2017.
In this meeting, slow pace on-going schemes being executed by the administrative departments would be examined thoroughly and additional funding, if required, would be released to complete these schemes.
He also said that the P&D department had already announced January 31 as the deadline for all departments to furnish their complete status of surplus funds, which would be utilized properly & timely on other development schemes.
The chairman emphasized that administrative departments and development partners should sit together to finalize the projects for inclusion into ADP 2017-18.
“In this connection, the P&D Department will accommodate both at any stage,” he said, and reiterated that “the administrative department’s performance is the performance of P&D. Every administrative secretary should act as a finance manager and planning manager.”
“The P&D department has to formulate Punjab ADP keeping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in mind,” he added.
P&D Secretary Iftikhar Ali Sahoo said that government departments had utilized funds of Rs 143 billion for the development schemes. He told the forum that development schemes of major sectors had already been received by the P&D department for timely release of the funds.
“The P&D department will prepare its first draft of the ADP from February 1 to March 15, send it to the finance department in May, and then will it submit to the provincial assembly in June for final approval,” the secretary said.
Addressing the session, Finance Secretary Hamid Yaqoob Sheikh said that the Punjab finance department would ensure the availability of funds with the respective administrative departments. “Issues of releasing funds will have to be settled timely with the finance department by the concerned departments.”
The meeting also highlighted that under the new local government setup, district education authorities will implement educational schemes.
