PESHAWAR, March 20: The city district government Peshawar and its four town municipal administrations (TMAs) may not be able to fully utilize their development funds, sources told Dawn.

The city government, its four TMAs and 92 union councils are required to spend over Rs55 million collectively by June 30.

The reason behind this likely scenario is the fact that these institutions are still busy in finalizing their schemes to be carried out during the current financial year.

The city government got its ADP approved from the district council on Feb 26, leaving it with only four months to ensure 100 per cent utilization of the funds allocated to Peshawar district under the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC).

Similarly, Town-1 got its ADP approved for the current financial year on Feb 28, which leaves it with four months to utilize funds.

"We are in the process of inviting tenders for development schemes," said Haroon Bilour, Nazim of Town-1.

According to the PFC award, out of the total development funds put at the disposal of a district government, 60 per cent goes to the district council, 30 per cent to the town municipal administrations and 10 per cent to the union councils.

Before distributing funds among district, towns and union councils, 25 per cent of the total funds are needed to be specified for the Citizen Communities Boards (CCBs) - required to be constituted by citizen on their own to support development activities at the grass-roots level through community participation.

The prospects of 100 per cent utilization of funds appeared bleaker after the district council failed to develop a consensus on the ADP following which a special committee of the district council was constituted to finalize the number of schemes to be carried out during the current financial year.

"The district council approved the ADP under duress only to facilitate utilization of the allocated funds," said Saeed But, a union council Nazim, adding that the special committee had been tasked to hold discussions with the council members to remove their reservations over the ADP.

According to information gathered from different official quarters, once the special committee completed its assigned task, the number of schemes approved by it for execution would be forwarded to the district development committee (DDC) which would determine their viability.

The DDC, headed by the District Coordination Officer (DCO), has the powers to scrap any number of developed schemes after finding them unviable in the scrutiny process.

"The DDC's proceedings are under progress and would take some time to let the physical execution of schemes get under way," said an officer, adding that though the district government's ADP was approved on Feb 26, physical execution of development schemes would begin after procedural requirements were fulfilled.