Government to spend Rs 45 billion on development of Fata

The government is planning to spend Rs 45 billion under the 10th Five Year Plan on uplift schemes in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to bring the tribal belt on par with other developed parts of the country. Official source told Business Recorder that the pace of work on most of the ongoing development schemes in Fata is very much slow, whereas the federal government is planing investment of another Rs 45 billion.
The Fata administration has utilised only Rs 460 million during first six months of the current financial year out of total amount of Rs 864 million, which was to be utilised during the first quarter of 2004-05, the official said.
After a recent meeting with the international donors, the federal government has instructed the Fata directorate to identify new projects in various sectors and to prepare PC-I of various projects so that they could be presented to the international donor agencies and the governments of the developed countries including the USA. The official said that Fata directorate is yet to respond to the directives of the federal government.
The official said that the ministry of planning and development has prepared a five-year plan under which the government would spend Rs 45 billion. However, the federal government is annoyed with the present utilisation capacity of Fata. The government also feared that it would not be able to attract the international financial institutions and some Western governments' assistance in the development drive of the tribal areas if the funds utilisation remained so slow.
The World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the US government have shown their interest to participate in the development of Fata, the official said. For the current financial year, the government allocated over Rs six billion for Fata's uplift, however, the low utilisation of development funds is presently a major concern of the federal government.
The Fata administration held an important meeting with ministry of planning and development here on the developmental schemes and utilisation of funds. During the meeting, the ministry has instructed the Fata administration to enhance their utilisation capacity during rest of the financial year. The development schemes, which were undertaken in infrastructure, education, health and water sectors, could not benefit the common man if the utilisation standard was not improved.