ISLAMABAD, March 20: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on Tuesday approved 45 development projects to be carried out at a cost of Rs82.2 billion, including cost overrun of Rs32.9 billion.
The CDWP meeting, presided over by Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr Akram Sheikh, was informed that a total of 238 projects costing Rs223.8 billion had already been approved in the current fiscal year. With Tuesday’s addition, the number of projects and their cost have gone up to 283 and Rs306 billion, respectively.
These projects would be included in next year’s development programme, said Muhammad Asif Sheikh, a spokesman for the planning commission. Some of these projects are now part of current year’s public sector development programme (PSDP). The remaining projects would get financial allocations in next year’s PSDP but the funding size would depend on the overall resource availability.
The total cost of the 45 projects approved on Tuesday was Rs49.3 billion. Of these, the cost of each of 17 projects is over Rs500 million. As such, the total cost of the projects is Rs76.7 billion. All these projects were cleared for approval by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).
Dr Asad Shah, member infrastructure of the planning commission, said that a World Bank mission completed a visit to Pakistan recently to explore possibilities of financing an integrated water sector programme for better management of Indus Basin that also involved construction of dams.
He said the mission also visited the proposed site of the Diamer-Bhasha dam but said it was not appropriate for them to commit funds at this stage for one or all projects. He said the mission, in its initial findings shared with the government, felt that better management of the Indus Basin was needed given scarcity of funds and deterioration of professional and analytical capacity in Pakistan in the last 40 years when projects were last developed. He hoped that both the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank would be major partners in the development of these large dams.
Mohammad Asif Sheikh told newsmen after the meeting that the single largest project for a province was the Sindh Water Sector Improvement Project to be carried out at a cost of Rs10.675 billion. The project will be financed by the provincial government with Rs9.1 billion soft loan of the World Bank.
Of the total, 21 projects of Rs24.4 billion were approved for infrastructure and 13 projects in the social sector at a cost of Rs46.1 billion. The remaining 11 projects of Rs11.7 billion are related to science and technology, industry and information technology. Ten projects were deferred because of non-availability of relevant officials.
Mr Sheikh said the single largest project costing Rs26.5 billion was approved in the health sector on a country-wide basis. The cost of National Programme for Family Health Programme for Lady Health Workers was increased by Rs5 billion because of its success involving about 96,000 LHWs.
The increased cost would result in the increase of salaries for LHWs from Rs1800 to Rs2300 per month. The CDWP directed the health ministry to bring another project for consideration if it wanted to expand the project.
A total of 21 projects worth Rs55.6 billion were approved on a country-wide basis that means these would benefit more than one province. For example, Rs15.84 billion Clean Drinking Water Project for All and Rs26.5 billion LHWs project would be spread to all parts of the country.
On provincial basis, six projects of Rs11.8 billion were approved for Sindh. Of these six, three projects will be financed from Prime Minister’s Thar Development Package for which funds have been released by the federal government.
The package is part of Prime Minister’s election campaign. This is followed by Rs8.3 billion worth of six projects for NWFP, Rs4.5 billion worth of seven projects for Balochistan and four projects costing Rs1.7 billion for Punjab.
In the transport and telecommunication sector, nine projects of Rs9.3 billion were approved. These include Rs3.65 billion improvement of N-50 and Rs4 billion road improvement of Jalkhand-Chilas Road project.
