Ahmed Khan Malik

The Sindh government has decided to complete the ongoing development schemes during the current financial year by not including any new scheme in the development plan, reports WealthPK.

“The Sindh government has decided to complete the maximum number of schemes continuing for the last 10 years,” Munawwar Abbasi, Director of Sindh Planning Board, told WealthPK.  He said full funds, equivalent to the current throw-forward to date, had been provided to the schemes with expenditure more than 70 percent or current throw-forward less than Rs50 million. Similarly, 50 percent allocation was provided to the schemes with the current throw-forward between Rs50 million and Rs100 million. Some other regular schemes have been provided with 20% allocation of current throw-forward due to the fiscal constraints, Abbasi said. As far as the development expenditure is concerned, he noted that Sindh had been in dire need of infrastructure development post-2022 floods. Owing to the unwavering support of the international donor agencies, the provincial government was able to steer development activities in the last two years on a sustainable basis. He pointed out that the provincial development expenditure for the Financial Year 2024-25 stood at Rs959.1 billion against the last year’s budget of Rs735.103 billion. This includes Rs55 billion earmarked for the district ADP.

There are 4,250 ongoing schemes with an allocation of Rs305.496 billion (being 79 percent of total ADP). There are 395 unapproved schemes, which were part of the ADP 2023-24 but could not be approved during the year due to the ban imposed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). These schemes will remain unapproved in the ADP 2024-25 with an allocation of Rs92.87 billion (or 24 percent of the total ADP). As many as 552 ongoing schemes have been fully funded for completion by June 2025, while 849 ongoing schemes with a throw-forward of less than Rs50 million have been fully funded for completion by June 2025. Details show that 858 small nature ongoing schemes have been fully funded for completion by June 2025. The schemes where tenders are not issued and if they require cost increase due to CSR-2024, will get additional funds from block allocation of Rs80.0 billion kept in the ADP. Through this strategy, out of a total of 4,644 schemes continuing in the ADP 2024-25, about 1,812 schemes have been provided with full funds and are likely to be completed in FY2024-25. He said the federal government had committed Rs52.912 billion in the PSDP 2023-24 for 19 schemes but despite consistent requests by the Sindh government, the federal government did not release the money.

Credit: INP-WealthPk