PESHAWAR, May 25: The NWFP government has directed its line departments to keep their annual development programme (ADP) to a rational level in the next financial year, according to official sources. “The heads of departments have been instructed to avoid putting inflated development programmes for the 2005-6 financial year,” said a development planner. These instructions, he said, were issued during a meeting presided over by NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani on May 10.

A senior development planner told Dawn that it had been felt that the line departments had a tendency to over-commit themselves at the time of framing ADPs. “The departments’ heads have been asked to recommend only those development schemes that are feasible,” said the official.

Departments have been asked to allocate 70 per cent of their development funds in the next financial year to development works being carried out, 20 per cent to ongoing foreign-funded projects and 10 per cent to new development schemes.

“To avoid complications in future, the departments have been asked to avoid over-commitment to new development schemes,” said the official.

In the first nine months of the current financial year, the province’s development expenditure was recorded at only 35 per cent of the total amount of ADP. Currently, the ADP consists of 1,098 development projects, 145 of which are new.

“Physical execution of several new schemes could not begin during the current financial year, because the government laid emphasis on the ongoing schemes in line with its commitments with an international lending agency,” said a source.

In line with the provincial government’s policy, 70 per cent of the funds released to each of the departments was diverted towards ongoing development projects and 30 per cent to new schemes. “This policy left several of the new projects with no funds,” said an official.