Punjab government under its Annual Development Programme 2005-06, utilised 96.09 percent development funds and this ratio of utilisation was 6.30 percent higher than the previous year; an amount of Rs 55.77 billion was spent during this period against the actual release of Rs 57.63 billion.
According to a Planning and Development Board's spokesman here on Friday, a report in this regard was submitted to the Chief Minister to apprise him of the ADP utilisation.
The Chief Minister appreciated the performance of the departments which utilised allocated funds properly and also directed to seek reason from the departments which did not show satisfactory performance.
The said amount was spent on construction of roads, urban development, access to justice programme, health and higher education sectors. Moreover, funds were also allocated to the district governments and tehsil municipal administrations to carry out their development programmes. For the development of social sector Rs 23.71 billion were provided against which Rs 20.59 billion were utilising.
Out of this amount, the departments utilised Rs 19.25 billion during the fiscal year, which was 93.51 percent but 30 percent higher than the previous year.
Similarly, infrastructure development sector was allocated Rs 33.58 billion.
The major share went to roads sector while an additional amount of Rs 12 billion was provided through supplementary grants. The actual amount released to this sector was Rs 30.81 billion and the departments succeeded to utilise Rs 30.38 billion. The ratio of utilisation was 98.54 percent, showing 8 percent increase compared to the last year.
Production sector, which include agriculture and allied departments, industries, mines and minerals sectors, were allocated Rs 1.81 billion and released Rs 1.79 billion. The departments incurred expenditures of Rs 1.72 billion showing 96 percent utilisation, which was 26.11 percent higher than the previous year.
To ensure the best and maximum utilisation of allocated funds for the schemes, all possible efforts were made by the P&DB to minimise the magnitude of surrenders and lapses of funds.