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Friday March 29, 2024

At the end of 2021: 40 depts of Sindh govt utilised only 16pc on uplift schemes

By Imdad Soomro
December 30, 2021

KARACHI: At the end of 2021, about 40 departments of the Sindh government could only utilise a very little amount of 16 percent on the development schemes of the sanctioned budget.

On the other hand, not a single rupee has been spent by the provincial government on newly-announced 1,670 development projects, while the share of foreign-funded projects and federal government-funded projects also remained very low.

According to the official figures, Rs329 billion were announced for the development schemes for the financial year 2021-22 but to-date only Rs112 billion were released and Rs55 billion has been utilized.

Only 6 percent and 12 percent could be utilised in the most important areas of health and education, where according to the official figures, Rs18 billion were announced and Rs3.78 billion were released and only Rs1.61 billion were utilised. On the other hand, Rs26 billion were sanctioned for the development schemes of the Sindh Education Department, Rs7.59 billion were released and only Rs3.24 billion were utilised. About Rs5 billion were sanctioned for the development schemes of the Sindh Agriculture Dept, Rs1.81 billion were released while only Rs0.66 billion were utilized. For the Sindh Local Government Department, Rs25 billion were sanctioned and only Rs5.4 billion were utilized. For the development schemes of Sindh Minorities Department, Rs 1 billion were sanctioned but only Rs40 million were utilised.

The Sindh Irrigation Department and Sindh Works and Services Department were the only departments which utilised 39 percent of the sanctioned amount. Rs30 billion were announced for the development schemes of district development projects, while only Rs16 billion were released and merely Rs6.08 billion were utilised.

The Sindh province was expecting Rs71 billion for the foreign-funded projects but only Rs20 billion could be released and out of them only Rs 7 billion were utilised. The federal government announced Rs5.30 billion for its development schemes in the province but it released only Rs230 million and not a single rupee was utilised.

This reporter approached Sindh Minister for Information Saeed Ghani, who is also the spokesperson of the Sindh government, but he did not respond.