PESHAWAR: call it negligence or dillydally, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Energy and Power Department could managed to spend merely Rs5 million on one project out of Rs2.57 billion allocated under the department’s Annual Development Program (ADP) for 50 projects of tribal districts.
The official documents show that so far no funds could be spent on 49 other projects in the much-neglected tribal districts of the province.
Officials of the Department were of the view that the federal government was responsible to fund some of these projects which have been included under the Accelerated Improvementation Program (AIP), while for other projects, funds were to be released by the provincial government, which are yet to be released. The officials said that these are not mega power generation projects, like in settled districts of the province, but just power transmission lines, solarization and grid stations’ constructions projects. They also expressed the fear that due to the inordinate delay in release of funds, the estimated cost of these projects could increase further.
According to documents, due to the political tussle between former the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and the Pakistan Democratic Movement government in the center, the province has been facing serious financial difficulties as the center has stopped funding to the province, impacting projects of the ADP adversely.
Former KP Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra had expressed many a times that the federal government had cut the funds allocated for tribal districts, which had, resultantly, severely affected the development process.
However, a few days ago, former Federal Minister of Finance Miftah Ismail, clarified that the PTI government in KP and Punjab was not ready to provide three percent from their share in the National Finance Commission to the tribal belt. He also clarified that the center had never promised to allocate 100bn rupees annually to the tribal districts. Ismail said if the commitment was made at the time of merger in 2018 then PTI government should have started the provision of these funds to tribal districts.
