ISLAMABAD, March 17: The federal government has decided "not" to include unapproved development projects in the new Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2004-05.
Official sources told Dawn here on Tuesday that all the federal government departments and the provinces have been directed to get their development projects approved latest by May 2004.
A large number of unapproved development projects, sources said, were included in the current PSDP despite the fact that the sponsoring agencies could not submit their PC-1 till to date.
He said that a total of 130 unapproved projects were included at the eleventh hour in the current PSDP by the National Economic Council (NEC) held in June last year with the assurance that PC-1 of these projects would be submitted expeditiously by the sponsoring agencies.
"But these agencies are still silent even after many reminders sent by the Planning Commission. And the government now has no option but to divert the funding of the unapproved projects amounting to billions of rupees to various other approved projects," a source said. He said that NEC meeting held on Monday was told that PC-1 of 52 unapproved projects have not been received as yet.
The next meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), sources said, would be held on March 22 to discuss and approve a number of development projects worth Rs10 to Rs15 billion. The new Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr. Akram Sheikh will preside over the meeting.
Most of the projects to be approved related to water, energy, transport & communications, health and education sectors. Meanwhile, it was also learnt that the Priority Committee of the Ministry of Finance will meet during the last week of this month. All the new development projects to be included in the next PSDP will be discussed by the priority committee.
This committee, will recommend new development projects to the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) to be held in of May. Later all the projects recommended by the APCC would be finally approved by the NEC in its meeting to be held in June before the announcement of the new budget.