PESHAWAR, May 1: Lack of proper monitoring of uplift projects being executed in various districts of the NWFP is causing wastage of resources, officials say.

They said the NWFP government had been allocating Rs963 million annually under the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) award for the past four years to 24 district governments and 61 tehsil and municipal administrations (TMAs) for development projects.

In addition, funds earmarked for uplift projects under the Tameer-i-Sarhad Programme, National Urban Development Programme (NUDP) and Community Infrastructure Projects (CIP) go to districts indirectly.

But, according to the officials, little progress could be made towards the improvement of social indicators because of absence of a transparent mechanism for monitoring and evaluating these projects at the grassroots level.

The TMAs, which have a vital role to play in the overall urban development, lack required capacity resulting in overlapping and wastage of resources.

“District governments spend a huge amount annually on the construction of small roads, pavement of streets and drains, but the quality of work is not up to the mark.

Most of civil works carried out over the last couple of years only exist on papers. In some cases, roads have been washed out because of substandard material,” officials at the planning and development department said.

They said the TMAs were working as the first line agency in undertaking most of the projects in the province, but majority of its employees had no idea about the development work.

An official at the local government and rural development department said that most of tehsil municipal officers, being heads of TMAs, were employees of the local council boards and had the experience of municipal services only.

According to him, the monitoring of development projects was considered as a low priority area that was why limited resources were allocated for it at the planning and development department, line departments and district governments.

“Development activities need a proper mechanism, including material testing laboratories and skilled staff,” another official said.

He said that before the restructuring of government departments in 2001, the provincial government had one material testing laboratory with branches at various places of the province and a central design office at the works and services department.

The mandate of the laboratory and design office was to ensure the quality of civil works. However, in the restructuring plan, the government had abolished the design office and abandoned the material testing laboratory, the official added.

He said that with the dissolution of such institutions, the government had lost control over infrastructure-related projects.