LAHORE, May 13: The provincial government is taking least interest in executing development schemes in the Punjab as it has so far not utilized even one-third of the funds allocated for the purpose in the 2002-2003 budget.

According to a report of the Accountant General Punjab, out of Rs22.103 billion earmarked as development budget for the current financial year, the provincial government utilized only Rs6.46 billion in the first 10 months of the fiscal.

The rest of the development budget —- Rs14.325 billion —- apportioned for executing public welfare and uplift schemes would likely go unutilized or wasted.

This amount would rather be used for extending perks to civil servants as the government had consumed 97.87 per cent of the Rs126.647 billion non-development budget and would need Rs21.246 billion more for the purpose during the last two months of the current fiscal.

Ironically, the pattern is also being followed by district governments, which had been established to speed up development process by devolving powers down to the grassroots level.

The report reveals that the district governments executed uplift schemes worth Rs5.591 billion only during the period under consideration while these had at their disposal Rs11.868 billion budget for the purpose. It means that these governments utilized only 47 per cent of the development budget.

Experts say either the unutilized funds will go wasted or will be misappropriated by executing development schemes in a hurry in the last two months of the current financial year.