Chitral's development funds go to waste
PESHAWAR, Feb 27: During the current fiscal year which started from July 2012, the provincial government released Rs309 million to 16 districts, including Chitral, but these districts could not utilise a single rupee from the fund for their development. Apart from Chitral the other such district are Abbottabad, Buner, Charsadda, Dera Ismail Khan, Lower Dir, Karak, Kohat, Kohistan, Lakki Marwat, Malakand, Peshawar, Shangla, Swat, Tank and Torghar. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government reverted to the old local government system from January 1, 2013, after abolishing local governments (district governments and tehsil/town municipal administrations) in all 25 districts, reviving the old system that too, was regarded as a failure, according to a report published in dawn on Wednesday. However, before their abolition, the 25 districts governments received development funds from the province as per their respective share under the PFC award for carrying out their district specific development works. Of the total amount of Rs478.7 million released to the district governments during the first six months of the current financial year, only Rs51 million could be spent. It makes 5.2 per cent of their total cumulative annual fund of Rs1 billion. The government has earmarked Rs1.67 billion for the districts’ annual development programmes, including Rs1 billion for the district administrations, Rs105 million for the town/tehsil municipal administrations, Rs165 million for development schemes to be carried out in line with the provincial chief minister’s instructions and Rs82 million for schemes to be carried out as per the provincial finance minister’s instructions. Apart from Rs478.7 million released to the district government, another sum of Rs106 million was released to the town/municipal administration in the July-December period of the current financial year, an amount of Rs50 million was provided for carrying out chief minister’s schemes and Rs24.3 million for the finance minister minister’s share of the development fund. ]]>