ISLAMABAD: With the government nearing the end of its term in a couple of weeks, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has approved the immediate disbursement of Rs51 billion for the parliamentarians’ scheme for the poor ahead of the general elections on Monday under the Sustainable Development Goals Achievement Programme (SAP).

Four supplementary grants worth over Rs61bn were also approved, and all of them are likely to attract public support. The government allocated Rs90bn for SAP for the current fiscal year, and has now approved Rs51bn for immediate disbursement. This is the highest ever disbursement for any single programme before completion of even the first quarter, for which 20-25pc of the allocations are generally disbursed.

While doing so, the ECC approved a supplementary grant of Rs47.149bn in favour of Ministry of Housing and Works for execution of development schemes under SDGs Achievement Program (SAP) in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and KP. Under this head, Rs26bn were approved for Punjab, Rs9.235bn for Sindh, Rs8.97bn for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Rs2.59bn for Balochistan.

Another Rs2.725bn grant was also approved for disbursement under SAP imitative for utilisation by the power division for execution of development schemes in the four provinces. Of this, Rs100 million will go to Sindh, Rs2.285bn to Punjab, Rs250m to KP and Rs90m to Balochistan.

On top of this another Rs1.016bn for the SAP parliamentarians’ scheme were approved for disbursement to petroleum division for execution of gas schemes in selected constituencies of Punjab. A Rs10bn grant allocated to PM’s Youth Programme for Small Loans was transferred to PM’s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2023