University of Chitral allocated over Rs1.7bn under PSDP
CHITRAL: The University of Chitral has been allocated Rs1,724.458 million on account of developmental expenditures in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2020-21.
According to a press release, the project director of the university had submitted PC-1 to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in February this year which was presented in the departmental development working party (DDWP) meeting held in the HEC on March 11 and subsequently approved for inclusion in the PSDP.
Staff, students and other stakeholders belonging to Chitral thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan for including the development of the University of Chitral among the few projects from the province reflected in the PSDP 2021.
University of Chitral was already in both PSDPs of June 2017 and April 2018 presented by PMLN Govt with an estimated Rs 2.9 billion.
What is strange is PTI Govt first took it & Garam Chashma Roads out of the PSDP & now reincluded both projects albeit with University of Chitral s funds slashed from Rs 2.9 billion to a low of Rs 1.7 billion with a reduction of 1.2 billion rupees.
Likewise the PMLN had annual allocations of Rs 1.5 billions for the 154 km Chitral Booni Mastuj Shandoor Road costing Rs 16.75 billion when the US$ was Rs 100 Rs to each US$.
Now when the Pak Rupees lost its value with US$ rising to Rs 170 it was expected the annual allocations would be increased to atleast 4 or 5 billion to ensure its early completion within 5 to 6 years.
Sadly, the PTI Govt reduced Shandoor Road allocation to Rs 35 crores only which is peanuts & with such non serious allocations it may take 100 years for this vital project to complete. Such double standards show the low priorities PTI is attaching to flood and 8.1 magnitude earthquake hit Chitral that in 2015 pushed back Chitral s development back by 30 years.
Likewise many are taking credit for the Fibre optic funded by USF & approved & started by Nawaz Sharif in 2014.
Shahzada Iftikharuddin
Sir I have been following you on Facebook and you have been posting the allocation news in the media but why in the five years not a single penny was released for these mega projects in Chitral?
My second question if Funds were released for University of Chitral than why purchase of land and construction was not started ?
Because the PTI government in the province did not allocate a single penny for purchase of land. You should know that provision of land is the responsibility of the provincial government and raising building on it is the domain of the federal government. At that time, the PTI government in the province did not purchase land, so this was not released.
This year also, although the federal government has allocated funds but the province has not. Thanks to PTI