Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Thursday that the federal government had announced 126 projects in Sindh under its Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2017-18.

Of these, the provincial government has started executing 27 projects of Rs27.326 billion, he said, adding that the centre had released only Rs7.385 billion out of these funds, which amounted to just 27 percent of the allocation.

“This is the importance that the federal government is giving to Sindh,” he said.

He expressed these views while presiding a meeting ahead of the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting which will be held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on February 26 in Islamabad.

The meeting was attended by Industries Minister Manzoor Wassan, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, P&D Chairman Mohammad Waseem, and Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput.

The agenda of the NEC includes a review of the PSDP 2017-18 and of progress in meeting socio-economic objectives of the 12th Five Year Plan 2018-23.

P&D Chairman Mohammad Waseem told the chief minister that the federal government had released only 20 percent of the allocated amount for three schemes involving construction of small dams, lining of distributaries, and rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage system

At this, the chief minister said according to the policy set by the Planning and Development and Reforms Division, 70 percent of the allocated amount should have been released so far. “They are violating their own policies,” he said.

The federal government has allocated only Rs800 million for construction of small dams, delay action dams, recharge weirs, and ISSO barriers in Sindh, leaving Rs7,900 million yet to be released.

The project involving lining of distributaries and minors in Sindh has been launched with Rs13 billion against which only Rs400 million have been allocated, the meeting was told.

Similarly, a Rs16.795 billion scheme of revamping and rehabilitating of irrigation and drainage system of Sindh has been launched but for the current fiscal year only Rs400 million have been allocated, leaving a throw-forward of Rs4.046 billion. At this, the chief minister observed that these schemes would never get completed at the pace at which funds were being allocated for them, recalling that revision of S-III project was cleared by the CDWP in July 2017 with an increase in the cost from Rs7.982 billion to Rs36.117 billion. The project was taken to ECNEC where the P&D chairman urged the federal government to share 50 percent of the cost of the revised PC-I but the federal finance secretary reluctantly agreed to provide funds to some extent at a later stage, however minutes of the meeting are still awaited.

The federal government has expressed a similar attitude in the agreement under which it was to share a third of the cost of five combined effluent treatment plants, he said.

P&D chairman Mohammad Waseem told the chief minister that for the Urban Water Supply Scheme, Benazirabad, worth Rs1.567 billion, the federal government had agreed to share half the cost. The provincial government provided funds from its own account for early completion of work and the federal government had yet to release the funds it owed to the provincial government.

On this, CM Shah said that he would urge the prime minister to release the allocated amount of Rs392.29 million to Sindh government. The federal government also has to release remaining throw-forward amount of Rs175.944 million to Sindh government for Improvement of Roads in Hyderabad. The chief minister also prepared a case to take up with the prime minister that work on Jamshoro-Sehwan Dual Carriageway should be started at the earliest.

At the meeting, it was also pointed out that the NHA had launched Rs319 billion road sector schemes against which Sindh has been given a share of Rs5 billion. This was termed an injustice with the people of Sindh.

Published in Daily Times, February  23^rd 2018.