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PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government announced an increased budget for development activities in the upcoming fiscal year.
Finance Minister Aftab Alam Afridi presented a Rs547 billion Annual Development Plan (ADP) for 2025-26. This amount is approximately 32 per cent, or Rs131bn, higher than the current year’s Rs416bn.
The allocations under the proposed development expenditure for the next fiscal year include Rs195bn for PADP, Rs39bn for districts, Rs39.6bn for merged districts, Rs92.7bn for the accelerated implementation programme for the merged districts, Rs177.1bn as foreign project assistance and Rs3.47bn for PSDP.
The budget documents reveal that the provincial government has proposed 1,349 ongoing and 810 new schemes in the development outlay for the next year.
Similarly, the number of total foreign-funded schemes in ADP 2025-26 is 49, spread across 19 different sectors, with an allocation of Rs 177.1bn, out of which Rs11.6bn is a grant and Rs165.5bn is a loan from various countries.
The budget documents show that a maximum allocation, which is 73pc, has been proposed for ongoing schemes to ensure their timely completion and to minimise throw-forward liabilities.
A major chunk of the ADP has been allocated for the multi-sectoral development of the provincial government, Rs53.6bn for the road sector, Rs27bn for health department, Rs13.6bn for elementary and secondary education department, Rs10.8bn for drinking water and sanitation, Rs25bn for water, Rs9bn for urban development, Rs8.8bn for sports and Rs7bn for the agriculture sector.
According to the budget documents, the provincial government has allocated Rs1.2bn for the improvement of 2,500 basic health units in rural and urban areas. Similarly, it has also planned to establish satellite cardiac units of the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology in Mardan and Bannu, as well as a nursing college in Upper Chitral.
The budget documents reveal that the government has decided to impose an “education emergency” in the province and allocated Rs5bn to enrol out-of-school children.
The government has also allocated Rs1.6bn for the salaries of the teachers serving in the community schools, Rs8.5bn for the textbooks which the government distributes free among the students, Rs3bn for the establishment of a girls cadet college in Dera Ismail Khan, Rs1bn for hiring teachers on temporarily basis in the schools which facing shortage of teachers.
Keeping in view the troubling financial conditions of public sector universities in the province, the development budget has been increased to Rs10bn from Rs3bn.
The government has also allocated Rs2.7bn for converting government colleges into applied science and technology centres, Rs3.5bn for the construction of five new colleges, Rs1.2bn for scholarships and endowment funds.
For equipping the police department with weapons, vehicles and other purchases, Rs13bn has been allocated, including Rs3bn for the merged districts.
The government has allocated Rs9.6bn for the dualisation of the Bannu-Miranshah road in the South Waziristan district and Rs1.2 for Chashma Dara Tung road via Kafer Kot.For providing clean drinking water through the public health department, Rs17bn has been allocated including Rs1.2bn for the southern districts, Rs1bn for the central districts, Rs0.7bn for the merged districts and Rs0.57bn for the northern districts of the province.
Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2025
