PESHAWAR, Aug 10: The city district government has requested the provincial government to release funds for the ongoing development schemes in the district, senior officials said.

District Coordination Officer (DCO), Peshawar, Captain (retd) Jehanzeb Khan said that he had forwarded a letter four days ago to the Local Government and Rural Development Department to provide funds to continue work on the ongoing schemes in the district.

He said that work on all ongoing projects in the district had been suspended since caretakers replaced Nazims after the announcement of schedule for the local government polls across the country.

Mr Jehanzeb said that funds for development schemes had been frozen.

“The government will suffer if funds were not provided for ongoing schemes, because their cost will escalate and contractors would not take up the job at the same rate,” he said.

Local Government Secretary Baz Mohammad Khattak, when approached, said the provincial government was looking into the matter and would make en bloc allocation for three months to give salaries and carry out repair and maintenance work in districts.

He said that under section 112 of the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, the provincial government could release funds for salaries, maintenance and repairs.

Section 112 (5) of the ordinance reads: “In case a budget is not approved by a council before the commencement of a financial year, the concerned local government shall spend money under various heads in accordance with the budgetary provisions of the preceding financial year for a period not exceeding thirty days on pro-rata basis.”

Before the local government election schedule, the federal government had announced that new projects would not be launched in the districts until new district setup was in place.

The decision was taken to prevent political influence and interference on behalf of the provincial governments in the local body elections.

Senior government functionaries said the local body polls schedule would affect pace of development activities in districts.

They said that polls would delay the announcement of the annual development programme as well.

“We presume the districts will approve ADPs after October,” said an official, adding that the government had yet to evolve any mechanism to avert wastage of time.

Normally, till after the announcement of the provincial budget, the concerned district councils passed their ADPs and approved schemes. The current year’s ADPs, however, have been delayed due to polls.