PESHAWAR, June 5: The Drought Emergency Relief Assistance (Dera) programme, financed by international donors, has yet to take off in the NWFP where utilization of funds under it remained at the zero level during the 2002-03 financial year, according to sources.
The delay in the physical implementation on projects approved under the programme is attributed to the large-scale changes brought about under the old scheme of things by the new provincial government.
Some of the official sources said that work on over 550 development schemes would be initiated at the start of the new financial year after the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — the two donor agencies — accorded final approval to the projects’ PC-Is submitted to them by the provincial government.
However, sources in the planning and development department, NWFP, told Dawn that execution of the development schemes was supposed to be initiated during the out-going financial year.
“But it could not be made possible and the utilization of funds already released to the province by the centre remained at the zero level,” said a development planner.
Out of the total amount of Rs10bn the federal government had allocated to carry out Dera-related projects in Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP, a sum of Rs1.5bn had initially been fixed to be spent in the Frontier province.
Later, said the sources, the NWFP’s share rose to Rs1.899bn.
The province has been released a total of Rs698m in the last two years.
Sources said that the cut-off date for the World Bank to approve the schemes — to be funded by it in the NWFP — was June 30, 2003, following which physical implementation on the schemes identified would be started.
Whereas, in the case of Asian Development Bank, according to the sources, the cut-off date to grant approval to the projects’ PC-1s submitted to it was August 31, 2003, at the expiry of which work on the execution of these projects would be initiated.
Officers concerned talked to by Dawn admitted that the MMA-led NWFP government made significant changes in the original plan, shrinking the role of district governments.
“Under the new scheme of things,” said another development planner, “members of the provincial assembly belonging to the ruling alliance have also been accommodated in terms of allocating funds for several schemes proposed by them to be carried out in their areas.”
In this way, said the sources, the MMA-led NWFP government also made changes in the budgetary plan the last provincial government had prepared.
In some of the instances, the new provincial government diverted funds from one district to another, apparently to accommodate its own MPAs or execute maximum number of Dera-related schemes in areas involving large support for the MMA in the southern and northern parts of the province.
Nazim of the Kohat district government Malik Asad recently made public his grievances against the provincial government when, in a meeting with the chairman NRB Danyal Aziz — some two months back — he complained that a substantial portion of funds out of the total amount allocated to his district under the Dera programme by the last provincial government had been shifted to other districts to appease the MMA’s MPAs.
Similar complaints were also voiced by some of the other Nazims of other districts who were also present on the occasion.
The revised plan to execute the multi-billion-rupee Dera programme, in the NWFP, involves a total of 553 schemes to be carried out in 14 districts of the province to offset the impact of drought on areas hit by it.
The schemes identified for execution in the NWFP include some 335 water supply schemes and 218 irrigation schemes, including four small dams with two in Karak district and one each in Kohat and Hangu districts.
The NWFP’s districts where Dera projects would be carried out include Kohat, Bannu, Karak, D.I.Khan, Lakki, Hangu, Tank, Abbottabad, Harripur, Dir (Upper), Dir (Lower). Buner, Chitral and Kohistan.
Due to the inability of the provincial government to start execution of the Dera programme even during the 2002-03 financial year, said the sources, the federal government had indicated to the province it would not release more funds to it until the Rs698m already released to Peshawar were utilized during the next financial year.