28 March 2004	Sunday	06 Safar 1425

PESHAWAR, March 27: More than 6,500 small-scale schemes of infrastructure development were completed in the NWFP province with a total investment of about Rs4 billion under the federally-funded Khushal Pakistan Programme (KPP) , according to official sources.

Launched in the 2000-01 financial year, initially under project name of poverty alleviation programme, the KPP covered all the 24 districts of the province.

Thousands of schemes of farm-to-market roads, lining of water courses/channels and desilting of canals, repairing of small rural roads, water reservoirs/ponds, repairing of the damaged buildings of primary and high schools in addition to constructing streets/drains were executed in all the 24 districts of the province at a cost of Rs6.5 billion.

Besides, small number of schemes were executed to improve condition of civic amenities in the jurisdiction of some of the town committees and municipal committees.

Similarly, the KPP funds were also utilized to procure equipment and machines to upgrade some of the existing vocational centres in some of the districts in addition to executing small number of village electrification schemes in fewer districts.

"Though some of the KPP-funded schemes are yet to be completed, a majority of the approved number of development schemes have been completed," said the officer.

Of the total investment of about Rs4 billion made under KPP, an amount of about Rs2 billion has been spent under its phase-III, Rs1.1 billion under phase-II, and a sum of Rs564 million under phase-I of the programme.

"Though it is hard to say to what extent the programme remained effective or helped the government bring about the much-needed improvement, it remains a fact that a large proportion of the population benefited from the works executed at the grass-roots level," said an officer of a department concerned of the provincial government.

Small schemes executed under phase-I of the KPP benefited a population of 7.7 million, whereas phase-II and phase-III benefited about 8 million people and 16.7 million individuals, respectively.