The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has increased its budgetary allocation by roughly over 300 percent and demanded Rs 44.71 million to meet its expenditures during next fiscal year.
Sources told Business Recorder here that the hike was likely because the funds would also include Rs 25.5 million project of the operations and the maintenance of the 'Computerised Telemetry System', that the body is expected to take over from Wapda by mid July this year.
"Irsa has been seeking Rs 44.71 million to meet its expenditure during 2004-05, while it had acquired Rs 14.2 million funds during the ongoing fiscal. Besides the annual allocations, the Irsa had requested for supplementary grant of Rs one and half million, which is still pending with the Finance Ministry," sources said.
The sources said that Rs 1.5 million supplementary grant which the Authority has applied for the current financial year is not yet released by the finance ministry and that may hinder the payment of salaries of the employees for months of May and June.
Irsa had sought Rs 19 million funds in 2003-04 budget, but it was slashed to Rs 14.3 million by the finance managers along with some strict auditing of the body's accounts, ordered by the finance ministry. The tussle is yet to be resolved.
The Finance Ministry has released Rs 6.4 million to Irsa for three months (April-June) for telemetry system and a portion of these funds is also being utilised to meet routine expenditures.
The new system is installed at 23 points in the four provinces with the aim to minimise the water theft complaints of the provinces against each other. However, the system is yet to give accurate data at some of the points.
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