PESHAWAR, April 22: Five of the 24 district governments in the NWFP have yet to get their annual development programmes approved from their respective district councils for the fiscal year 2003-04 with only two months remaining of the current financial year , sources said on Thursday.

These include Buner, Swabi, Swat, Dir (Upper) and Dir (Lower) districts, sources said. They said Rs130 million, which had been put at their disposal for carrying out development work in their respective areas, remained unspent.

These five districts, sources said, are in addition to the seven districts - Bannu, Battagram, Charsadda, Chitral, Hangu, Malakand and Peshawar - that, too, could not utilize the development funds despite having gotten their respective ADPs approved by their respective district councils.

A senior development planner said that the development process being carried out by the district governments was in a shambles complicating matters for the provincial government.

"A substantial proportion of funds released to districts governments for carrying out development works is likely to lapse as several of these entities cannot use the money due to a variety of reasons," said the same official.

Another officer said that all the district coordination officers had repeatedly been instructed to expedite the pace of development activities in their respective areas, adding that no attention had been paid towards these instructions.

The situation, sources said, had left the provincial government in an awkward position before some international donor agencies. Sources said that the provincial government had so far spent 24 per cent of its total annual development programme envisaging an investment plan of more than Rs14.6 billion.

"Provincial authorities concerned do not exactly know as how much amount the district governments have actually spent out of the funds released to them for development purposes, so far," said a finance manager of the province.

The source said that at least three district governments including the district government of Mansehra, Lakki Marwat and Kohistan had not provided information of their development expenditure to the authorities concerned at the close of the first eight months of the fiscal year.