ISLAMABAD, Aug 21: The Sindh government has sought the intervention of President Gen Pervez Musharraf to overcome the province's increasing financial difficulties.

Informed sources told Dawn here on Saturday that Sindh was experiencing financial problems and it had expressed its inability to adequately fund a number of important development projects such as the ongoing Rs13.8 billion Lyari Expressway Project in Karachi.

In its communication to the federal government, Sindh authorities have referred to an announcement made by the president in which he had said that additional financial support be extended to Sindh to meet the cost of its development projects.

The sources said that Sindh had complained that directives of the president's secretariat, including to bear the cost of the Lyari Expressway project, had not been implemented by the federal government and that the matter required the intervention of President Musharraf himself.

The overall cost of the Lyari Expressway Project has been worked out to be Rs13.8 billion which included the Lyari Expressway (Rs5 billion), Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project (Rs2.8 billion) and land cost (Rs6 billion).

The sources said that the Sindh government had repeatedly shown its reservations on the cost-sharing formula and had requested the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) to reconsider its decision. Sindh authorities wanted the federal government to completely finance the Lyari project.

Sindh also maintained that the construction of the Lyari Expressway was linked with the clearance of its 15.5 kilometres Right of Way (ROW) for which the provincial government was sharing funds in the shape of 255.29 acres, costing Rs6 billion.

On the recommendations of the Planning Commission, the federal government is ready to provide additional Rs500 million towards the resettlement costs.

"But Sindh says it cannot meet 40 per cent cost of the project, therefore the federal government should take the full responsibility of the project over which roughly Rs1 billion had been spent up to April 30, 2004," a source said.