PESHAWAR, Feb 14: Non-availability of sufficient funds to the district governments under the head of repair and maintenance (R&M) has put under strain the public-sector infrastructure constructed with billions of rupees in the Frontier province, official sources said.

"Sustainability of infrastructure is fast becoming an issue difficult to handle for the cash-strapped district governments," said a senior officer of the provincial government.

The district governments are finding it hard to maintain their infrastructure, especially roads, for lack of resources, according to officials posted in different districts.

They held the resource distribution formula devised under the current Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) award responsible for the erosion the infrastructure had begun to suffer.

Under the PFC award, the resources are to be distributed among the 24 districts of the province on the basis of population, backwardness of an area and state of its infrastructure.

Of these three parameters, population is given top consideration. Fifty per cent resources, from the provincial divisible pool, are distributed on its basis.

Of the remainder 50 per cent, half is distributed among the districts on the basis of backwardness and the other half on the basis of infrastructure needs.

But an officer said the funds placed with the district governments under the last-mentioned head are not sufficient to cater for the R&M requirements of infrastructure.

Districts such as Abbottabad, Peshawar and Mardan, which inherited comparatively developed infrastructure, have an added problem. The fiscal space available with them leaves little to be diverted to maintenance work.

"The R&M funds available with the Abbottabad district, for example, are not even enough to clear district roads affected by the recent snowfall", an official said.

District highways, particularly in Peshawar and Swat, districts, are in a shambles, for the same reason - lack of money.

Districts having expanded infrastructure needed to be provided sufficient R&M funds to save their multi-billion-rupee assets from decadence.