Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The government has utterly failed to spend almost 1 per cent of the GDP for the research and development fund of Science and Technology programmes. Ministry of Science and Technology just allocated 0.29 per cent share of the GDP for Research and Development in the current fiscal year, which is extremely low as compared to other developing and regional countries.

According to documents available with the Daily Times, Ministry of Science and Technology’s demand of Rs 3510 million PSDP for FY2015/16 to cater to the need of developmental portfolio comprising 24 ongoing 21newly approved and 43 proposed projects.

However, only Rs 1510.427 million were allocated, for the purpose , which is 0.6 per cent of the overall PSDP of federal ministries for the ongoing portfolio, leaving 21 approved projects in the lurch .

This lower allocation has not only hindered the implementation of ongoing projects but also left many critical projects without funding .Due to similar lower allocations in the past, a number of projects that were approved as early as 2007,and were initially planned to be completed in 24 months, are still under implementation, resulting in cost overruns, piling liabilities and litigation.

The ministry has raised this issue with the Ministry of Planning from time to time. The low performance of science and technology innovation Policy 2012, which recommends enhancing (R&D) expenditure to 1 per cebt of the GDP till 2015 and 2 per cent by the year 2020 also needs reviewing. At present, however, R&D sector is allocated only 0.29 per cent share of the GDP, which is extremely low in comparison to other developing and regional countries such as India(0.82) Turkey(0.94)and Malaysia(1.13 per cent)of their total GDP.

The ministry of planning released Rs.420.594 million (28 per cent) during the first six months of the current financial year and the ministry expenditure during this period was Rs.338.669 million which is 81 per cent of the released funds.

The ministry demanded Rs 3150 million budget for FY 2016/17 with 70 projects approved for the year, out of which 18 projects are being carried over from PSDP 2015/16, and 14 were already approved but not included in PSDP 2015/15 while 38 new projects are being proposed for approval.

It is pertinent to mention here that the senate standing committee on Science and technology has expressed serious reservations in meetings by deciding not to allocate the proposed budget of the important ministry.

Moreover funds allocation of mosT PSDP be increased appropriately by the federal govt as a mean to give science and technology the importance and priority. Furthermore the senate committee has recommend that the STFS projects amount being spent on erecting new buildings and relating cost be discouraged.