The Punjab government has drastically cut local government and community development budget from nearly Rs7 billion last year to 910 million this year. Sources in the Planning and Development department told Business Recorder that the government had been making substantial budgetary allocations for transforming Katchi Abadies into Social Housing through the corporate sector over the past four years.
They said that the provincial government had allocated Rs6.955 billion in FY 2007-08, Rs8. 4 billion in FY 2008-09, Rs7.7 billion in FY 2009-10, Rs5.8 billion in 2010-11 , Rs7 billion in 2011-12 and just Rs910 million in FY 2012-13.
Although they gave no reason for this drastic cut in the ADP of the Katchi Abadis development programme, they admitted that out of 1,210 reported Katchi Abadis, 900 have already been notified by the Punjab government.
The Katchi Abadis development programme envisaged provision of basic services like water supply, sewerage, roads and street lights in Katchi abadis. Under this programme, 128 had been fully developed while 366 of them had been partially developed in Punjab, they added.
They said that the Punjab Municipal Improvement Services Project had been sponsored by the Punjab government with the assistance of the World Bank for the provision of municipal infrastructure (water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, drainage, street lighting, roads, parks development, fire fighting and capacity building project) in selected Tehsil Municipal Administrations (TMAs) of the province.
They said of the total budget of Rs910 million, Rs621 million would come from the foreign aid and Rs343 million will be mobilised from local resources for community development programmes this year.