30 September 2004	Thursday	14 Shaban 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: The government has directed all ministries and divisions to submit by Oct 31 approved studies of their development projects and warned that their budgetary allocations would be diverted to other sectors if they did not do so.

Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that more than 150 projects were made part of the Public Sector Development Programme 2004-05 in June without their approved PC-1s. The prime minister has told the ministries and divisions that if the PC-1s approved by the Planning Commission are not submitted, the finance ministry will divert their allocations to other deserving sectors.

The sources said the directive had created a sense of emergency in the ministries and the commission, that was compromising the quality of scrutiny, evaluation and economic assessment of the projects.

They said the Central Development Working Party meetings, which were normally held once in two months, were being scheduled after every 10 to 15 days and the commission was finding it difficult to process the projects in time for those after addressing technical objections and concerns.

The CDWP will meet for the second time in a fortnight on Thursday to approve 22 projects worth more than Rs48 billion, mainly in the power sector, for the current fiscal year.

On Sept 18, the CDWP had approved 55 projects of Rs122.5 billion, mainly in the water, irrigation, energy and housing sectors. The CDWP would meet again by mid October and then at the end of the month.

The sources said relaxation had been given for major projects and those of strategic. The meeting on Thursday, to be presided over by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Akram Sheikh would also consider concept clearance of three projects of Rs961 million, the sources said.

It would approve nine projects in the energy sector of Rs41 billion, mostly for rural electrification and distribution system of various Water and Power Development Authority companies, they said.

A Rs5.5 billion rural electrification scheme in Multan, a Rs2.2 billion scheme in Faisalabad, a Rs2.4 billion scheme in Peshawar and a Rs2.4 billion scheme in Lahore would be approved, they said.