ISLAMABAD: Non utilisation and surrendering funds amounting to Rs 216.629 million by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT) and its subsidiaries during the current financial year has raised a question mark about its performance.
According to documents available with the Daily Times, IT ministry and its subordinate departments failed to fully utilise the funds allocated to them in the budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 and surrendered Rs 216.629 million due to lack of efficiency and extremely poor performance.
The IT ministry surrendered Rs 0.734 million out of the development budget and Rs 2.06 million out of funds earmarked for strengthening the server room. Like wise Rs 17 million were returned to the national exchequer out of allocated funds forGSM Gilgit-Baltistan expansion, a project of the special communication organisation. Rs 84 million were returned out of funds allocated for further improvement in Virtual University.
The National Information Technology Board (NITB) has surrendered funds given to different projects with the details that Rs 2.14 million were surrendered out of NITB’s non development budget, Rs 8 million from E-office Republication All Division of the federal government funds, Rs 1.340 million from E-Enablement of FIA funds, Rs 2.429 million from FPSC Online Recruitment system funds and Rs 5.025 million out of Computerisation of prime minister’s secretariate funds.
Likewise the ministry of IT and Telecommunication Pakistan Soft ware export board surrendered Rs 2 million out of funds allocated for Technology parks development project Islamabad and Rs 73.89 million in the project of construction of IT Parks following its failure for purchase of land from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for JAIP Karachi and AIIAP Lahore. The IT ministry and its subsidiaries’ failure in utilising the allocated funds indicates that mismanagement has taken deep roots therein as return of funds unspent means making a dent in the national development related projects.