July 11, 2008	Friday	Rajab 7, 1429

GILGIT, July 10: The Northern Areas’ planning and development department has been unable to set its priorities in the development sector and has failed to finalise the Annual Development Plan (ADP) even though the second week of new financial year is about to end.

“The draft of ADP is ready but we are not certain how long it would take to get it finalised” a senior official of the department told Dawn on condition of anonymity.

The federal government has allocated Rs5.45 billion in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), and the planning and development department is supposed to submit the ADP in an Executive Development Forum meeting, which is always presided over by the federal minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Area, who is also the chairman of the region.

It has been learnt officially that the federal ministry has curtailed the powers of Northern Areas Legislative Assembly (NALA) members, who were earlier empowered to identify uplift projects worth Rs50 million.

However, now their share in the ADP has been fixed at Rs15 million, while the rest is to be identified by the bureaucracy.

“This time round the formula is set that 80 per cent of the total development funds would be spent on completion of ongoing projects, while remaining 20 per cent would be utilised for those project which would be identified by lawmakers” the official said.

Secretary Planning and Development Department Abdul Sattar, when contacted to learn how many projects were included in the upcoming ADP, declined to share the number of projects and said it was to early to say anything about the ADP, as it was drafted but not approved by the concerned quarters and changes might be made.

The NALA members have expressed grave concern and resentment at the procedure the department has adopted.

A delegation led by Deputy Speaker Syed Asad Zaidi called on Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Area, Qamar Zaman Kaira to seek his support for preparing the ADP on old pattern, but all efforts made by them went up in smoke.