ISLAMABAD: The government has officially cancelled 455 projects from the current financial year’s Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) citing they had been added on political grounds.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Planning and Development shared the revised PSDP 2018-19 in a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Planning, reports Express Tribune.
The revised PSDP 2018-19 document shows some projects coming under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar city have been excluded.
The government’s decision to drop unapproved projects would decrease the total financing needs of the PSDP by Rs2 trillion to Rs4 trillion.
The Finance Minister Asad Umar had proclaimed that Rs575 billion would be given from the budget to finance the PSDP, however, the document from Planning Ministry reveals allocations have been reserved at Rs675 billion.
However, this allocation has been done with the approval of the finance ministry, as per an official of the planning ministry.
Development Budget Adviser Asif Sheikh of the planning ministry apprised the Senate panel that the government had excluded around 400 projects from PSDP 2018-19 on the criterion of unsanctioned projects and approved schemes where spending is either nil or up to 10 percent of the cost.
Mr Sheikh didn’t provide the exact number of projects that have been sidelined from the PSDP.
Previously, there were 1,284 projects in the current years PSDP, which included those to be funded by corporations had now been reduced to 829, indicating that 455 projects had faced the axe.
The development budget adviser confessed before the Senate panel that four CPEC projects and one dozen schemes had been excluded from the PSDP.
The government hasn’t excluded the Rs14.2 billion Lahore-Sialkot Motorway project despite there was a meagre 0.4 percent spending on the scheme for which allocation in the current financial year is Rs5 million.
Also, the project to rehabilitate Quetta-Dhadar section has been excluded from PSDP notwithstanding Rs700 million was spent on it, which equates to 10 percent of the overall cost.
Furthermore, Kuzdar scheme has also been shelved notwithstanding the Rs500 million expenditure incurred on it, which comprises 30 percent of the total cost.
And construction of Basima-Khuzdar project worth Rs19.2 billion was also dropped from the PSDP.
Seventy-eight schemes of the National Highway Authority (NHA) have been decreased to 54 in the revised PSDP resulting in a budget cut of 12 percent or Rs25 billion to Rs185.2 billion.
But the government has added one new scheme to the projects under the Karachi Package to the portfolio of the Ministry of Communication.
Moreover, over 45 projects of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) have been excluded from the PSDP, reducing the overall schemes to 133 only.
After dropping 45 of HEC projects under PSDP, its budget was reduced by 13.5 percent or Rs4.9 billion to Rs31 billion.
Around 83 schemes of the interior ministry, some of them underway have been cut and has been decreased to a total of 29 projects only.
Consequently, the interior ministry’s development budget has been cut by 48 percent or Rs11.4 billion to around Rs12.2 billion.
