QUETTA: Balochistan has allocated Rs54.5 billion for next fiscal year’s Annual Development Programme (ADP), a rise of 7.5 per cent compared to this year’s Rs50.7bn, the budget documents showed on Wednesday.

The province plans to spend 60 per cent of the ADP, which includes foreign project assistance of Rs3.33bn, on new projects and the rest of it on the ongoing schemes.

This policy of allocating more money to new projects will increase the throw-forward of development schemes in the province from the present Rs124.7bn to Rs141.32bn by the end of the next financial year.

The number of ongoing schemes in the province is 940 and the government plans to start another 1,310 projects during 2015-16. A total of 807 projects were completed during the outgoing year.

It means that it will take about seven years to complete all the projects that are being started during the next financial year if the development funds were distributed between new and old schemes in the same ratio of 60:40, the documents show.

The new provincial budget focuses more on infrastructure development, especially in the road, power and water sectors. It also focuses on schemes that are directly and indirectly linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), like construction of international airport in Gwadar.

In all, around 49pc (Rs26.7bn) of the total development funds will be spent on infrastructure. A sum of over Rs11bn, about 20pc of the entire development spending, has been allocated for roads.

In the water sector, construction of small dams is has been given top priority to develop the agricultural sector of the province and speed up growth rate.

Energy sector projects include coal and solar generation. “The energy sector projects mostly consist of provision of electricity to villages and installation of off-grid solar home system in areas where transmission lines are not available,” the budget documents say.

The increased focus on infrastructure projects is in line with the development priorities of the federal and Punjab governments.

The other focus of the public investment spending is the social sector — education, health, water and sanitation, etc — for which 37pc (Rs20bn) funds have been set aside. Over half of the funds for the social sector will be spent on school to higher education and almost 20pc on health.

Production sectors — agriculture, industry, etc — have been earmarked 9.6pc (Rs5.23bn).

The increase in the financing for infrastructure projects betrays a change in the Dr Abdul Malik government’s development choices in its third budget. In its first two budgets, the investment spending was more focused on social sectors.

With the provincial budget for the next fiscal carrying a deficit of Rs26bn, the possibility of downward revision of development spending cannot be ruled out.

The resource crunch forced the provincial government to cut down the development financing from its own resources by 13.5pc to Rs41.5bn from Rs48bn.

The major victim of the reduction in development spending was the social sector.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2015

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