ISLAMABAD, May 19: The Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) is expected to approve on May 22 a Rs375 billion development budget, including Rs25 bn Khushal Pakistan Programme (KPP) for the next year, showing an increase of more than 32 per cent (Rs91 bn) over the current year.
The working paper for the APCC obtained by Dawn suggests that the size of the public sector development programme (PSDP 2006- 07) has been proposed by the planning commission at Rs350 bn (4.3 per cent of GDP), up by 29 per cent over current year’s Rs272 bn.
In addition, an allocation of Rs25 bn has been proposed for the KPP, against current year’s Rs12 bn showing an increase of more than 100 per cent, for small schemes to be undertaken at the district level.
As such, the total size of the next year PSDP would stand at Rs375 bn compared with Rs284 bn of the current year, up by Rs91 bn. The increase in PSDP size as percentage of GDP over the current year is about 9.6 per cent.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who holds the finance minister’s portfolio, will inaugurate the APCC’s first session scheduled for May 22. Deputy chairman planning commission Dr Akram Sheikh will preside over the day-long session to be attended by the federal secretaries, provincial ministers for planning and finance and representatives of AJK, Northern Areas and FATA.
Of the Rs350 bn PSDP, an amount of Rs250 bn has been proposed by the planning commission for next year which is 22 per cent higher than current year. The provincial share in the federal PSDP would amount to Rs100 bn or 47 per cent higher than current year.
The major emphasis has been given to social sectors and poverty related expenditure with an allocation of Rs110.4 bn (31.4 per cent), followed by infrastructure development Rs98.6 bn (28.2 per cent), water resources development Rs42.6 bn (12.17 per cent), transport and communication Rs35.5 bn (10.2 per cent) and energy Rs20.5 bn (5.9 per cent).
The allocation for production sectors i.e. agriculture, industry and minerals is Rs4.1 bn (1.9 per cent) and rest of the amount on other sectors.
According to the working paper, the finance ministry had indicated an overall size of Rs298 bn (Rs213 bn for federal component and Rs85 bn for provincial schemes) for the PSDP 2006-07. Accordingly, the Priorities Committee made its recommendations within the federal size of Rs213 bn including a foreign aid component of Rs37.5 bn.
This was against the total demand of Rs453 bn, including foreign aid component of Rs50 bn and planning commission’s recommendations of Rs285 bn including foreign aid component of Rs41 bn.
The APCC would, however, approve Rs350 bn PSDP for next year on the ground that the allocation recommended by the priorities committee could not match the funding requirement of the ongoing projects and left no space to undertake new initiatives.
The planning commission is of the view that the resource availability indicated by the finance ministry was even less than the current year’s PSDP in real terms and of course significantly lower than projected five-year size, on constant prices, of Rs319 bn.
