ISLAMABAD: The federal government had allocated significant funds of Rs265 billion for water, sanitation and hygiene services in the provincial and federal budgets during financial year 2023.

According to the Economic Survey 2022-23, in the wake of uncontrolled urbanisation and environmental changes, there was a dire need to focus on the quality of drinking water in the country. Moreover, growing population further accelerated the demand for safe drinking water. During FY 2023, a review of the budget documents showed an upward trend of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) allocations from 2018 to 2023.

“There is an increase of 152 percent in budgetary allocations for WASH in FY 2023 as compared to FY 2019,” the survey added. Similarly, an increase of more than 253 percent in WASH expenditures in FY 2022 as compared to FY 2019 had been observed. The overall utilisation of the allocated budget for WASH was 86 percent in FY 2022, while it was 83 percent in FY 2021, 55 percent in FY 2020 and 57 percent in FY 2019.

For the last four years, utilisation of the current budget for WASH services was more than 94 percent. On the other side, the utilisation of development budget had also improved from 39 percent in FY 2019 to 78 percent in FY 2022.

“There is a visible increase in the budgetary allocations for WASH during the last five years. This is coupled with investments made under enabling environment by different development partners along Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCCC) like Joint Sector Reviews, Policy Papers, WASH Sector Development Plans and so on,” the survey highlighted.

An overview of overall WASH allocations for FY 2023 in Pakistan revealed that the highest allocations were made in the Sindh province of about 38.3pc, followed by Punjab (24.5pc), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (20.6pc) and Balochistan (16.4pc), respectively.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2023