June 22, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 25, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 21: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) unveiled on Tuesday a surplus budget for the year 2006-07 with an outlay of Rs21.238 billion without imposing any new taxes.

The CDA has set a revenue target of Rs14.975 billion to be generated from its own resources and expects Rs19.12 billion from the federal government under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) to finance various projects.

Announcing the budget at a news conference at the authority’s headquarters, CDA Chairman Kamran Lashari said, “the budget for 2006-07 is 23 per cent bigger than the Rs17.249 billion of 2005-06.”

Major chunk of the total outlay, Rs16.887 billion, has been allocated for development schemes, showing an increase of 24 per cent against Rs13.660 of the outgoing fiscal budget, with major emphasis on the development of infrastructures.

Similarly, the proposed non-development expenditure for the fiscal year 2006-07 has also been increased by 21 per cent to Rs4.350 billion, citing the 15 per cent increase announced by the federal government in the salaries of government employees and pension of retired employees as reasons.

“In compliance to the government decision, the authority has to increase its employees’ pays”, Mr Lashari said.

Responding to a question about utilisation of allocated funds for the current year, the CDA chief admitted that the authority could spend only 60 per cent of the total budget of Rs17.2 billion.

Mr Lashari also agreed that major chunk of development budget would be met by selling precious land of Islamabad.

However, he said very small piece of land would be sold in this regard. “Last year we auctioned only two plots for five-star hotels and their amount will be paid in instalments in 15 years,” he added.

The CDA chief said the authority should not depend only on selling of its land to meet its expenditure and stressed the need for searching other options to generate revenue.

Answering another query, CDA member of planning Brig Nusratullah said the authority was trying to improve monitoring system to ensure utilisation of funds in a transparent manner.

“Senior officials should pay frequent visits to the sites of development projects to monitor the quality of work and proper utilisation of funds,” he suggested.

Under the budget 2006-2007, the CDA will execute 97 development schemes through its own resources and 15 would be funded by the government.

A sum of Rs215 million has been allocated for the maintenance of Aiwan-i-Sadr and parliament house.

According to the CDA budget documents, these projects will be executed under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

The CDA has received Rs19.12 billion for 15 government-funded projects under the PSDP.

These projects are: Construction of presidential estate colony at Aiwan-i-Sadr, Rs20 million; construction of accommodation for police at Aiwan-i-Sadr, Rs10 million.

An amount of Rs 20 million has been allocated for the construction of a house for National Assembly speaker; Rs29.411 million has been earmarked for improvement of airconditioning facilities in the Parliament House, Rs12.620 million for installation of close circuit TV system, Rs20 million for consultancy service for maintenance of centralised airconditioning system in parliament house, foreign office and Pakistan Secretariat blocks A, B, C, D, P, Q, R and S, improvement of HVAC and furnishing of Aiwan-i-Sadr, Senate hall and parliament house building, and Rs100 million for construction of permanent offices of chairmen standing committees of parliament.