The size of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for federal programmes in the next fiscal year is expected to be increased by 12 to 17 percent and could be close to Rs 315 billion compared to Rs 270 billion in the current fiscal year, sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday.
Sources, however, said that actual size of the PSDP for 2007-08 would be proposed to the Annual Plan Co-ordination Committee (APCC) after the mid-year review of the PSDP of 2006-07, which is scheduled to begin from April 16.
The Planning and Development (P&D) Division would be in a better position to propose the PSDP allocation in the next budget after evaluating the exact position of the PSDP spending in the first nine months of the current fiscal year. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, the PSDP spending was Rs 99 billion, which is not up to the mark, they said. Sources said the actual funding available for federal projects in the current fiscal is Rs 250 billion, as Rs 20 billion has been estimated to be consumed as operational shortfall.
According to the sources, the ministries have increased their demands for development projects to be taken up under the PSDP 2007-08. The initial demand of the ministry of water and power, including Wapda is Rs 100 billion for the development projects in the next fiscal year. If this demand is accepted as it is, the government will be required to increase water and power allocations by around 109 percent as the allocation for the ministry in the current fiscal year is Rs 47.7 billion, they added.
The housing and works division is seeking an amount of Rs 28 billion in the PSDP 2007-08, which is many times higher than the current allocation of Rs 1.3 billion. The ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) is also seeking an allocation of a little over Rs 20 billion in the next fiscal year against this fiscal year allocation of Rs 11.8 billion, the sources said.
The communication division has also enhanced its demand by more than 100 percent from the current fiscal year allocation of Rs 25.5 billion. Generally, according to the sources, the demands of the ministries for PSDP allocation are not accepted in toto. The P&D always cut their demands in accordance with the availability of funds, they added.
Sources said after the mid-year review the P&D would know the exact position to propose the actual size of the PSDP as there could be some unspent money under the current year development programme.
Comments
Comments are closed.