ISLAMABAD - On one hand the federal government is delaying the release of Rs 21 billion for the Punjab Assembly elections, however, at the same time it has authorized Rs129 billion for development projects under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the 4th quarter of 2022-23. “Despite the financial constraints and disruptions caused by the super floods last year, the ministry has released Rs129 billion for the PSDP projects for the 4th quarter of (2022-23),” said the Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives here Sunday. The Water Resource Division and Higher Education Commission (HEC) have been given top priority for the PSDP projects, said the ministry. According to the latest data provided by the Planning Ministry, an amount of Rs 129 billion has been released for development projects under PSDP for the fourth quarter (2022-2023), including Rs 27 billion for Azad Jammu & Kashmir AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan GB and Ex-FATA.
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For the fourth quarter, an amount of Rs 30 billion was released to the Power Division to speed up the projects like Diamer-Bhasha Dam, Mohmand Dam, Kachi Canal, Nai Gaj Dam, while Rs 22 billion were released for Ministry of Communication to expedite the projects like Khuzdar-Kuchlak Road, Dualization & Improvement of Old Bannu Road. Rupees 8 billion were released for HEC to complete the projects. Similarly, an amount of Rs 4 billion was released for the Ministry of Housing and Works, Rs 8 billion for the Ministry of Railway, and Rs 5 billion for the Power Division. It is worth noting here that in the last quarter of (2021-22), there was a zero release for PSDP, which resulted in the government shrinking the PSDP from Rs 700b to Rs 550b. The Ministry said that unfortunately, the experiment of bringing the PTI rule shrank the PSDP to Rs 500 billion in April 2021.
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It is worth to note here that the utilization of foreign aid component of PSDP has increased by 68pc and reached over Rs 101 billion, while cut of Rs 13 billion has been imposed on rupee component of the development budget of the ongoing fiscal year. The total PSDP allocation for the FY 2022-23 was Rs727 billion which included Rs667 billion of rupee component and Rs60 billion of foreign exchange component. The rupee component has been revised downward to Rs 654 billion. On the other hand, the authorisation of FEC was almost Rs41 billion or 68 percent higher than the original allocation of Rs60 billion in the PSDP 2022-23.