PESHAWAR, July 8: The NWFP government has linked the release of development funds to district governments with the formulation of their annual development programmes, according to official sources.

The Provincial Finance Commission in its May 19 meeting had recommended that development funds should be released to the district governments only if they prepared ADPs and get them approved from their district councils.

The provincial government has incorporated the recommendation in its annual budget for 2006-07.

Previously, the provincial government had a system of distributing development funds among the 24 districts of the province on quarterly basis, irrespective of the fact whether they had formulated the ADPs or not.

However, the district governments could have utilized the funds only after getting the ADPs approved from their district councils.

In most of the cases, the funds remained unutilized for a major part of a financial year because of the district governments’ inability to formulate the ADPs.

Though the PFC has recommended the change of the rule to push the district governments to prepare the ADPs at the earliest, the new measure, according to sources, is likely to benefit the provincial government.

“Hundreds of millions of rupees which remained unspent by the district governments will now serve as a cushion for the provincial government,” said an official.

According to the Local Government Ordinance 2001, district governments and their subordinate tehsil/town administrations and union councils are bound to get their annual budgets and the ADPs approved from their respective councils before beginning of a new fiscal year.

However, very few among the districts governments have followed the rule.

Last year, according to sources, majority of the 24 district governments had not got their ADPs approved from their district councils even at the close of the first nine months of 2005-06.

Situation in 2004-05, 2003-04 and 2002-03 was not different when majority of the district governments failed to formulate the ADPs in time.

The NWFP government, in line with the past, will distribute Rs963.4 million among the 24 district governments during 2006-07 to let them carry out small- and medium-sized development works.

So far the Peshawar City District Government and a couple of other district governments have prepared their annual budget for 2006-07.