The government on Tuesday said that according to the final accounts of Auditor General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR), the utilisation of Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) up to February 28, 2006 stood at Rs 99.014 billion or 48.5 percent of total allocation.
About 23 PSDP mega projects were still not on track affecting the country's economy adversely, said Planning Commission Chairman Dr Akram Sheikh here at a press conference. He said the delay in Mangla raising project only for one-year would cause a hefty loss of Rs 17 billion to the national exchequer, and eight months have already lapsed.
Though the volume of PSDP has expanded by 38 percent during 2005-06 to Rs 204 billion, and PSDP to GDP ratio has graduated to 3.8 percent from 2.5 percent, but there was a big room for proper utilisation of funds and project management, he added.
According to the planning commission, there were about 156 mega projects (each one of them costing above Rs 500 million) accounting for 60 percent of the total PSDP. Out of these 23 projects (amongst 12 were in infrastructure) were slow moving and not on track. The reason was the scarcity of technical skills and the management.
Dr Akram Sheikh said most of these projects were delayed because of non-availability of project directors, adding that 23 percent of the projects have no project directors, however, the government has trained more than 150 project directors to meet the shortfall.
Besides, political unrest in Balochistan was also one of the main reasons which caused delay in execution of mega projects.
Dr Akram said the planning commission has three objectives to achieve: These include timely completion of the project, utilisation of allocated resources, and achievement of its main objectives.
The planning commission has also initiated process of monthly and quarterly meetings with the provincial governments and ministries and departments concerned, which helps in removing the hurdles to a great extent.
During the first six-month (July-December) funds utilisation in Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was 57.4 percent and 47 percent in the communication sector including NHA, said Dr Akram Sheikh.
He acknowledged low utilisation of funds in Industries & Production and Commerce divisions for which Rs 690 million and Rs 120 million were allocated, respectively for the current fiscal year.
The justification in this regard was that in Industries & Production the slow pace of fund utilisation was because over 80 percent of the amount has to come from donor agencies for which negotiations were underway, while the commerce could not utilise bulk of the allocation (Rs 100 million) earmarked for a new scheme, "Construction of Building for School of design" which was at a very early stage of implementation.
Similarly, the government has planned to embark upon a massive vocational and skill development programme through the ministry of labour and manpower, for which 90 percent of the allocation has been made, which again was in the early implementation, said Dr Akram.