106 critical PSDP projects to be on top priority in budget

ISLAMABAD: Without doing away with the funding for the controversial Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through parliamentarians, the federal government has identified 106 critical development projects from the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for making major allocations in the upcoming budget.

Although the finance ministry has not yet shared the exact resource envelope with the planning ministry, the decision has been firmed up that the identified 106 highly-important projects will be given top priority in the budget for the FY2025-26.

Out of these development projects, around 52 are of provincial nature. The federal government plans to allocate a major chunk to complete these projects in the next fiscal year. No new provincial nature projects will be made part of the next PSDP for 2025-26. It has also been decided that the provincial nature projects will be completed till the end of the next fiscal year, June 30, 2026.

The federal government is planning to create a fiscal space of Rs 2.5 trillion through two ways, such as completion of 276 ongoing schemes and closing down of 168 projects.

The government maintains that it is bringing efficiency in the PSDP by closing down sick projects and ending funding for provincial nature projects, but it continues to fund the highly controversial SDGs programme through parliamentarians.

In the current fiscal year, the government has so far utilised Rs 34.9 billion for SDGs schemes out of the total authorisation of Rs 48.6 billion in the first nine months (July-March) period of the current fiscal year. So far, the government claims that it has utilised Rs 450 billion out of the total authorisation of Rs 900 billion.

“Out of a total of 1,071 development projects from the PSDP list, the government is going to complete 276 development schemes till the end of June 2025 with a total cost of Rs 1.665 trillion. The government has also decided to close down 168 development projects across four provinces, having an estimated cost of Rs 1.1 trillion,” top officials in the Ministry of Planning confirmed while talking to The News here on Monday.

The officials said that a total of 444 projects would be either completed or closed down till the end of June 2025 so there would be no funding requirement for approximately Rs 2.5 trillion in the next budget for 2025-26.

The official circles claimed that it would bring efficiency in the development budget and would slash down increasing throw-forward, but insiders believe that it is aimed at creating a fiscal space to adjust more new projects by setting priorities devised by the incumbent regime.

The IMF has bound the Planning Commission to insert only 10 per cent of new projects approved by the CDWP and the ECNEC, so the government is creating a space to adjust its prioritised areas in the list of PSDP.

The government has prioritised 106 development projects with total estimated cost of Rs 7.3 trillion including PM’s Hepatitis Program with the cost of Rs 67 billion, IT Park for Karachi Rs 31 billion, PhD Scholarships Rs 25 billion, Danish School Rs 15 billion, Suki Kinari Rs 80 billion, Dasu Power Evacuation Rs 132 billion, Allama Iqbal Industrial Economic Zone Rs 18 billion, Islamabad West Grid Station Rs 52 billion, NTDC Sub-station Rs 32 billion, IESCO Rs 17 billion, Mohammand Dam Rs 310 billion, Dasu dam construction Rs 51 billion, Tarbella-5 Rs 82 billion, Mangla Up-gradation Rs 52 billion, Diamer Bhasha dam (power) Rs 1400 billion, Diamer Bhasha construction Rs 480 billion, K-4 Rs 40 billion, Karachi Water Supply Rs 126 billion, Mainline-1 (ML-1) Rs 1900 billion, Thar Coal Rs 55 billion and KKH Rs 234 billion.