PESHAWAR: Due to financial crisis, the Annual Development Program (ADP) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is feared to be cut by more than 70%, while work on the next year’s ADP is yet to be started.
The KP finance department sources said that the ADP has been frozen in November, last year, and now it has been practically ended despite the fact that over 4 and a half months are remaining in the current financial year. Some funds were released for new projects but it was not enough to make an impact.
The financial crisis has reached such a level that only salaries are being paid to employees working on development projects and all other operations have been stopped completely. According to sources, the finance department does not have funds for the ADP and there is no possibility of improvement in the situation during the next few months.
On the other hand, according to sources of provincial Planning and Development (P&D) Department, the estimated ADP was Rs 319 billion of which Rs 87 billion have been utilised so far. Similarly, Rs 99.11 billion ADP was unveiled for the tribal belt of which only Rs 10.63 billion have been spent which is 25% i.e. less than a quarter of the allocated development fund.
However, by the end of the financial year, there is a fear that the ADP will be reduced by more than 70%. Sources stated that some more fund would be utilised on development projects in terms of salaries and other expenditure.
Meanwhile, the development program of 2023-24 financial year is not being worked on and because of the financial crisis, thus, there are fear that budget of the next financial year will also be severely affected.
