04 November 2004	Thursday	20 Ramazan 1425

ISLAMABAD, Nov 3: The Sindh government has urgently sought an additional Rs12.5 billion from the centre to complete its important development projects in time.

Official sources told Dawn here on Wednesday that while the Sindh government had written a letter to the secretary of the finance division to get additional Rs12.5 billion released immediately, it also sought the intervention of President Gen Pervez Musharraf over the issue.

On Oct 5, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad wrote a letter to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, requesting him to provide additional funding to the provincial government.

The governor requested the prime minister to provide the entire cost of Rs2.8 billion for the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project. At the same time, he asked the prime minister to covert loan amount of Rs500 million into a grant and reimburse the interest of Rs78.560 million to the Sindh government deducted at source.

Sindh maintained that the cash flow plan for 2004-05 had already been forwarded to finance division on Sept 25 last, therefore, the releases should be made accordingly without any hindrance in future in the interest of the project so that it could be completed on targeted date.

According to a detailed letter written by the Sindh government to the Centre, the copy of which was also obtained by Dawn, the provincial government also sought additional Rs4 billion for Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD), Phase-II, which has not been released as per the PSDP allocation for 2004-05 and needed to be released on "most urgent basis".

"It is added that additional funds to the tune of Rs4 billion are required to be provided by the federal government as per cash flow requirement for 2004-05, so that physical progress of the project should be speeded up and completed at the targeted date," the letter said.

Similarly, the provincial government asked the Centre to provide Rs900 million for 100mgd water supply project for Karachi (K-III) urgently. The approved cost of the project is Rs6.1 billion and so far Rs1.5 billion had been utilized up to Sept 30 last against the total release of Rs2.5 billion.

The Sindh government further said that additional Rs4.5 billion were required during the current financial year to speed up the revamping/rehabilitation of irrigation & drainage system project in Sindh. "Federal government has allocated Rs500 million through federal PSDP 2004-05, which is totally insufficient to meet the requirement."

Sindh regretted that Rs350 million, which were committed for Thar infrastructure development, were not released as yet despite repeated requests made by the provincial government. "This project is supposed to be completed by 31st December, 2004, and if the funds are not made available well in time by the federal government then completion of the project will be delayed, placing the government in an embarrassing situation before the foreign investors," the Sindh government said.

"It is requested that federal government may kindly release the committed allocation booked under PSDP 2004-05 and additional funds required during the current financial year in respect of all federally funded projects in toto (not in piecemeal) so that physical targets should be achieved as targeted," the letter said.