ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: The government could hardly utilize $44 million out of $150 million released by the Asian Development Bank till June 2003 under the $350 million Access to Justice Programme (AJP).

An amount of $106 million could not be utilized as the provincial governments put the blame on the federal finance ministry for delayed release of the funds.

“The provincial governments have requested the federal government to ensure timely release of the funds for continuation of the ongoing projects,” officials told Dawn.

Sources claimed the projects in Sindh and Punjab were of particular concern where the provincial planning and development departments were not cooperating in executing the judicial projects.

According to the MOU schedule, signed between the Asian Development Bank and the government, the entire amount should have been disbursed by June 2003.

The finance division, the sources said, released the funds for provincial projects during May 2003 and the implementation agencies could not utilize the funds during the specified time frame.

Sources in the ministry of law said an amount of Rs500 million was released to the provinces and they could hardly utilize Rs210 million by the end of June 2003.

Of the total amount of Rs500 million released to the provincial governments, Punjab was given an amount of Rs258 million in May 2003, whereas the province could utilize only Rs82 million.

Sindh could hardly spend Rs14 million out of the released Rs107 million. The NWFP made the highest utilization of the funds by spending an amount of Rs85 million out of Rs87 million released to it. Balochistan managed to spend Rs29 million of the 48 million released to it under the AJP.

The share of the federal government in the AJP is 40 per cent and that of the provincial governments is 60 per cent.

In the allocations for 2003-04, by Sept 2003 an amount of Rs130 million has been released to Punjab out of an allocation of Rs516 million, Rs53 million to Sindh out of Rs213 million, Rs43 million to the NWFP out of an allocation of Rs174 million and Rs24 million to Balochistan out of Rs96 million.

The provincial governments, the sources said, have submitted details of 230 schemes to be implemented under the AJP. Punjab has submitted 200 schemes, Sindh 7, the NWFP 8 and Balochistan 15 schemes.