PESHAWAR, May 12: The NWFP government has expressed scepticism about the federal government’s Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) — the country’s five-year development strategy —- for ‘not taking into account’ financial constraints faced by the province and excluding ‘several’ development projects submitted by the provincial government, according to official sources.

“The development strategy is an over ambitious plan as it expects too much from the cash-strapped province(s) and heavily relies on private sector,” said a senior development planner of the province.

“It does not say from where the federating units would arrange the required funds,” said an official of the provincial government.

According to sources, the NWFP has submitted its stand on the MTDF (previously called the five year plan) to the federal government and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission during his meeting with Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani in Peshawar on April 23.

At the meeting, chief economist of the province Zafar Hassan made a presentation on the NWFP’s stand and explained that lack of financial resources would prevent the province from implementing its part of the development strategy.

Well-placed development planners, when contacted, told Dawn that the NWFP government did not have the financial capacity to earmark funds to different social sectors from its kitty in fulfilment of the MTDF.

The provincial government’s requests for strengthening irrigation system in the province by implementing water storage projects in its southern districts had not received a nod of approval from the centre, sources said.

The development planners said that in line with the five year plan, the NWFP was supposed to spend, under its own annual development programme (ADP), Rs1.48 billion for the uplift of transport and communication sector and Rs282 million for improvement in water supply and sanitation sector during 2005-06.

“The NWFP’s locally funded component of its ADP comes to around Rs8.5 billion whereas the MTDF requires it to spend Rs9 billion on the uplift of education sector during the next financial year,” said a highly placed development planner.

He added that the provincial government had apprised the federal authorities concerned that the Frontier province did not have resources to allocate funds to transport and communication sector.

Official sources said that apart from expecting too much from the provincial government(s), the development framework heavily counted on private sector’s investment in several sectors.

They added that the issue of heavy expectations from private sector had also been raised with the Planning Commission.

Its representatives were told during the April 23 meeting that while the MTDF stipulated Rs233 billion investment in transport and communication sector from private sector, the province had never received private investment in the sector.

Official sources said that the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission had not positively responded to the NWFP’s request for allocation of greater quantum of funds to the province.