May 09 , 2015
News
Punjab spends 40 percent of development budget till March
By Adnan AdilDuring the first nine months of the FY 2014-15, the Punjab government has utilized only around Rs 137 billion (40 percent) out of a total development outlay of Rs 345 billion provided in the annual budget, official documents reveal.
Against the provincial government’s claims of dazzling development being carried out in Punjab, the official statistics tell a different story.
The official utilization figures show the actual development funds released and utilized are far less than what were promised in the annual budget passed by the Punjab Assembly.
Only three months remaining in the completion of the fiscal year, the provincial government has not utilized even one-third of the development outlay allocated for the most sectors except roads.
Till the end of March this year, the provincial Finance Department released only Rs 211 billion (61 percent) of the total amount of Rs 345 billion allocated for the development projects in the annual budget. At the time of the budget’s approval, it was claimed that this development allocation is record high in the province’s fiscal history.
Even the released amount for development schemes has not been fully utilized so far. The provincial departments have used only 65 percent of the released funds. “The trick is that the government releases funds for some sectors such health and education towards the end of the year so that they could not be used,” says a top civil servant.
Moreover, an investigation shows that the Punjab government has diverted funds meant for higher education, health, population welfare, water supply and sanitation etc to the building of roads. The statistical evidence of this follows.
At the end of March this year, the utilization of funds for building of roads stands at 86.6 percent of the total budgetary allocation. Against this, the utilization is 28 percent for higher education, 38.2 percent for health, 38 percent for irrigation, 1.5 percent for population welfare and 5.5 percent for energy.
The Finance Department has released Rs 43.2 billion for building roads till the end of March against the budgetary allocation of Rs 31.5 billion - Rs 11.7 billion above the allocation passed by the Assembly. This is the only development area where the Finance department is not short of funds.
Out of the released funds for roads, Rs 27.3 billion (86.6 percent of the original allocation) have already been utilized.
In contrast, during this period, the government has spent only Rs 9 billion (38.13 percent of the total) on the development of health facilities out of a total budgetary allocation of Rs 23.57 billion.
The budget promised an amount of Rs 17 billion for water supply and sanitation but till the end of March the government utilized only Rs 7.3 billion.
Amidst a load-shedding of 12-18 hours a day for the last several years, the energy sector’s development projects are among the most neglected areas with an actual spending of only Rs 1.2 billion on these schemes - 5.5 percent of the total budgetary allocation of Rs 22 billion.
One of the most neglected areas in Punjab is higher education in which as against the budgetary allocation of Rs 11.55 billion, only Rs 3.24 billion (28 percent) were utilized during this period.
The annual budget allocated Rs 24 billion for literacy but the government utilized only Rs 14.4 billion (60 percent) of the total amount. For irrigation projects, crucial to the agriculture economy of Punjab, the government spent only Rs 13.5 billion (38 percent of the total) out of an allocation of Rs 35.6 billion.
The budget allocated Rs 2 billion for sports and youth affairs but spent only Rs 453 million on these schemes – less than one-fourth of the allocated amount (22.65 percent of the total).
The government has so far spent only a small amount of Rs 15 million (1.5 percent of the total allocation) on population welfare schemes as against the original allocation of Rs one billion.
The women development has utilized merely Rs 50 million from the total allocated amount of Rs 421million – nearly 12 percent of the total allocation.
An amount of Rs 190 million was allocated for environment-related development projects but the actual utilization during the nine months is merely Rs 16 million – around 8.5 percent of the total.
In the budget, the government promised Rs 541 million for labour and human resource development but has so far spent Rs 42.2 million or 7.8 percent of the total.
The budget has allocated Rs 7.15 billion for ‘regional planning’, a euphemism for the development of the less-developed areas such as Cholistan and barani region, but so far the government actually spent a paltry amount of Rs 3 billion (around 42 percent of the total) on such projects.
The budget promised Rs 7.5 billion for the development schemes of the districts, but so far the government has spent Rs 1.4 billion on them – only 18.7 percent of the total.
For the last 7 years, the PML-N government has been showing high allocations for different social development sectors when presenting the budget in the Punjab Assembly but in actual the government’s expenditure on the development of education, health, energy etc has been far less than budgetary allocations.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk