PESHAWAR, Dec 15: Lack of coordination among the key provincial departments is hampering the pace of development activities, creating fears of a repeat of last financial year’s situation when a big chunk of development funds remained unutilized, official sources said.
Despite the fact that the first half of the current financial year is about to end, in several cases executing agencies have yet to start preliminary work on development schemes.
According to official documents, lack of coordination between the Planning and Development Department and Board of Revenue (BoR) has made a mockery of the implementation of a multi-million-rupee scheme for the construction of ‘Patwarkhanas’ and ‘Muhafizkhanas’ (record rooms) at various places in the province.
Despite the fact that well over five months of the current financial year have passed, the BoR has not yet taken necessary steps to start physical execution of the scheme, even at a single place.
The documents revealed that the P&D Department had prepared a scheme worth Rs5 million for the construction of record rooms wherever required, particularly at places where the existing structures had got dilapidated.
In this respect, the Works and Services Department had also prepared a standard plan of construction to build identical structures across the province.
However, the BoR — the parent department — came to know about it only a few weeks back.
Though the P&D Department made an allocation of Rs3 million in the current financial year’s annual development programme (ADP) for the construction of Patwarkhanas and Muhafizkhanas, the BoR did not carry out the necessary follow-up activities because it had no information about it.
It was only recently that the Board came to know about the matter and started deliberating the issue to ensure maximum utilization of the allocated funds.
A high-level meeting held on Oct 28, discussed the issue in detail and decided that the physical work on the scheme would begin from Peshawar — being the provincial capital.
Muhafizkhana building in Peshawar, which was declared dangerous in 1974, would be removed and in its place new record rooms would be constructed, according to the sources.
The new building, according to the sources, would be equipped with modern office facilities for proper preservation of record.
Apart from Peshawar, buildings would also be constructed at places where there was a need and in this respect the district governments had recently been instructed to do the needful, the sources added.
The district governments have been directed to identify sites for the construction of the Patwarkhanas and Muhafizkhanas in their areas.
“Though decisions viz-a-viz launching of physical execution of the scheme had been taken over a month ago, the agency concerned has yet to submit a PC-1 to undertake construction work,” maintained an official source.
There are greater possibilities that the amount allocated for the purpose may not be fully utilized as it would require a lengthy exercise to satisfy long procedures before physical execution takes place to construct Patwarkhanas and Muhafizkhanas.