PESHAWAR: The provincial government departments utilised 62 per cent funds of Annual Development Programme (ADP) released till the third quarter of the current fiscal.

A statement issued here said that the third quarter review meeting of ADP, which was chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, was briefed about the allocation, release and utilisation of funds besides monitoring and evaluation of development schemes.

The meeting was told that so far Rs124 billion funds of ADP were utilised by different departments. Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz, Additional Chief Secretary Shakeel Qadir Khan and administrative secretaries attended the meeting.

The statement said that during the second quarter, 51 per cent of funds were utilised. During the third quarter, utilisation of funds reached 62 per cent, showing an improvement of 11 per cent.

The meeting was told that the ratio of fund release and utilisation remained at the highest level, during the financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Eleven projects were approved by central development working party and 252 projects were approved by provincial development working party whereas 112 projects were approved by departmental development working party during the third quarter of the current financial year.

The meeting was told that 621 of the total 800 development projects would be completed till the end of the current financial year. It was informed that 2,246 monitoring reports were generated during the ongoing financial year regarding development schemes.

The industries department topped the list with 100 percent utilisation of funds, followed by energy department with 82 per cent utilisation and transport departments stood third by utilising 79 percent funds.

The meeting was informed that Rs10.43 billion was released to elementary and secondary education, Rs6.8 billion to higher education, Rs15 billion to health, Rs20 billion to road, Rs11 billion to irrigation and Rs5.7 billion was released to sports and tourism department whereas Rs124 billion was released for all the development projects during the third quarter.

The chief minister termed utilisation of funds satisfactory. However, he stressed the need for 100 per cent utilisation of funds by the end of financial year.

He said that timely completion of development projects was top priority of government.

He directed the administrative heads of the departments to ensure completion of projects within the stipulated time period so that people could benefit from them without any delay.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2021