Sindh’s uplift priorities By Saleem Shaikh

WHILE the Sindh government is trying to target the next year’s development budget at Rs100-110 billion, it may have to lower its sight because of slow federal transfers of NFC and other funds and the rising debt servicing.

In the coming fiscal year, there would be more focus on new uplift schemes as compared to current 80:20 ratio of old and new schemes; the formula for 2010-2011 is likely to be 70:30.

The Sindh Planning and Development Department (P&DD) has directed different departments to come up with only the ‘most priority’ uplift schemes in view of the financial constraints. Of the over Rs100 billion ADP, Rs20-25 billion are likely to be reserved for 23 district governments schemes.

According to official sources, the MPAs’ allocations will be increased Rs60 million each to suggest uplift schemes for his constituency. At present, every legislator is allocated around Rs10 million. Priority would be given to communication sector and water supply schemes in the MPAs uplift fund.

The urban development package for Karachi and Hyderabad cities is likely to be retained and each of these major city is likely to receive Rs2 billion.

Secretary Planning and Development Aurangzeb Haq told this scribe that education, health, agriculture, transport/communication, industries and irrigation are being given top priority.

“In previous ADPs, short-distance road schemes were given importance. Contrary to this, now major road schemes are being assigned top priority to provide improved connectivity between towns and cities and to make mobility of people and goods easy and quick,” he remarked.

While the province is faced with serious energy shortfall, no major allocation is being made for promotion of alternative energy. “It is because the Alternative Energy Development Board is working in the four provinces, particularly in rural areas,” argued Aurangzeb Haq.

Officials in the P&DD’s industries section say that industries department would get 29 per cent more funds on the directive of President Asif Ali Zardari.

The higher ADP outlay for the department is because of its plans to construct four affluent treatment plants in four industrial estates in Karachi at a cost of Rs7.37 billion. Half of the cost of the project will be incurred by the federal government while the rest of Rs2.4 billion by the Sindh government.

An amount of Rs4.4 billion will be earmarked for coal mining schemes in Thar for power generation.

The number of schemes submitted by the Sindh Coal Energy Board is 16 with a total cost of Rs1.718 billion. These include eight new schemes with a total cost of Rs1.04 billion.

The industries department submitted a total of 37 new schemes at a cost of Rs6.9 billion. Besides, approval has been sought for Rs1.664 billion worth 12 ongoing schemes. Of the new schemes, 20 relate to Sindh Small Industries Corporation with a capital of Rs2,579 million and 16 others sponsored by the SITE Limited at a cost of Rs4,215 million.

According to sources, all departments have been asked by the finance department to surrender untilised funds before seeking allocations for any scheme to be included in the new ADP.

Another major constraint to the smooth utilisation of ADP funds is the lack of capacity of the planning and development department. Around 50 per cent posts of chiefs and assistant chiefs of various sections are vacant.

“Making development budget for the new fiscal year poses a daunting challenge for us,” said a planning official.

Sources in the department say the matter has been placed before the chief minister but it has yet to be addressed.

Secretary Planning Aurangzeb Haq says that during the outgoing fiscal year, the required funds were not released by the federal government, slowing down implementation of the ADP schemes and no work could be carried out on a number of schemes relating to agriculture, food, education, health, water and drainage, fisheries and livestock and forest, wildlife departments.

“Under the new National Finance Commission Award, Sindh would get more funds as the share of provinces in divisible pool has been increased from 44 to 56 per cent. But at the same time, Sindh may face cut in PSDP funds due to rising defence budget,” he said.

Officials say, while development schemes could be the priority for the MPAs and relevant provincial departments, the government’s priority is to pay salaries and meet expenses needed to keep the departments operational.

Given that factor, finance officials avoid to disturb cash balance and maintain that the uplift schemes could get delayed mainly because of the slow transfer of funds from the centre on time.

A senior official in the P&DD suggested that a huge amount could be saved by closing down departments sharing identical functions. For instance, functions of provincial antiquities department and culture department are almost the same.

“Similarly, there is no need for creating a separate prosecution department. It could be merged with home or law department.”

Elaborating further, he said, that the creation of separate Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) is hardly justifiable for providing clean drinking water. This function could be carried out by local governments. This department, however, can be merged with local government department as a part of the proposed austerity drive.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/economic-and-business/sindhs-uplift-priorities-760