QUETTA, Sept 9: Even as the first quarter of the current fiscal year is nearing its close, the Balochistan government has been unable to undertake any new development project because of an acute financial crunch, officials said.

"We are facing serious financial crisis. That's why we cannot initiate any development project," a senior official of the provincial government told Dawn. The financial crisis is hampering the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the current fiscal year and the provincial government, despite all its efforts, could not implement new development schemes included in the PSDP.

During the last two months, the Balochistan government received Rs2 billion instead of Rs4 billion from the federal government, a sum not enough to meet the development and non-development expenditures.

"We could not spare funds for implementing new development schemes in the province," the sources said. Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah recently visited Islamabad and had a meeting with officials concerned for seeking funds according to the projected figure in the budget.

The sources said that due to the financial crisis the provincial government was unable to effect a 15 per cent increase in the salary of its employees announced by the federal finance minister in the budget.

"Balochistan would have to arrange Rs1.5 billion for paying its employees enhanced salaries. The federal government owes Rs20 billion to Balochistan for the past six years but there are no chances of this hefty sum being released anytime soon," the sources said.

"Last year alone, the federal government gave us Rs7 billion less than our share. We have got an overdraft from the State Bank of Pakistan of Rs9 billion to meet our expenses," he added.

The SBP was reluctant to extend more overdraft, saying that the Rs9bn overdraft should be settled first. Deputy Speaker of Balochistan Assembly Aslam Bhootani also confirmed that "not a single new development scheme" had been initiated in the province because of financial difficulties. All the ministers and MPAs were awaiting release of funds so that they could launch uplift schemes they had identified for their respective areas.