ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The federal government has enhanced project sanctioning power of the provincial governments to Rs5 billion in case of 100 per cent self-financed projects. Planning Commission sources told Dawn that the commission had recently issued a notification to this effect.

Earlier provinces had powers to approve up to Rs4 billion worth of self-finance projects.

However, the projects in which foreign funding or federal government’s financing or guarantees are involved will have to be approved at the federal level by the Central Development Working Party and Executive Committee of the National Economic Council.

The sources said the provinces had been directed to improve their legal procedures for faster land acquisition because it was found to be one of the major factors behind project delays.

The sources said the government had decided to conduct quarterly reviews of the Public Sector Development Programme through the commission and principal accounting officers of the relevant ministries to overcome implementation obstacles.

According to sources, to accelerate pace of work on the PSDP projects, the allocated funds are being released on the basis of approved cash and work plans at the beginning of each quarter.

Similarly, the project directors of the development projects are being trained in the Project Planning and Management Institute of the Planning Commission to improve management capacity.

The monitoring and evaluation cells have been created in each division to improve project implementation directly by the relevant ministries before they are scrutinized by the Planning Commission.

The sources said the ministries and divisions had been asked to ensure that at least 40-45 per cent of budgetary allocations for development and social sector projects were utilized by end of December 2005 to ensure that the government was not compelled to make bulk releases in the last quarter of the fiscal year that normally compromised quality of fund utilization.