KARACHI, Sept 19: The Sindh government’s development funds, amounting to Rs3,052.361 million, lapsed during the last financial year because they remained unutilised despite their release. Out of 29 departments, only four managed to utilise all their allocated funds.

These allocations were for food, auqaf, Thar and CCB schemes, while rural development was the only department which did not submit a report about utilisation of its allocated funds.

Sindh Chief Secretary Fazlur Rehman has summoned a meeting of the secretaries’ committee on Saturday to review the ADP funds 2007-08 utilisation report.

According to the report, the information and archives department, whose allocation was Rs42 million during the year, utilised Rs2.201mn only, which was 14.6 per cent of the funds; as a result, Rs12.888mn stood lapsed.

The archives department was followed by the environment department, which utilised only Rs6.28m (16.1 per cent) out of the allocated funds of Rs39.025m, leaving an amount of Rs32.745m lapsed.

The statistical and ECO department utilised only Rs13.014mn, which is 17 per cent of the allocated funds of Rs76.5mn, therefore Rs63.48mn were unutilized.

The works and services department utilised 90.7 per cent of the funds against an allocated amount of revised ADP of Rs8,595.673m. The funds which stood lapsed amounted to Rs798.067m.

During the financial year under review, 11 foreign-funded projects remained under implementation, with an allocation of Rs2,066. 475m as the share of the Sindh government. Against this allocation, a utilisation of Rs1,357.233m has been reported, which is 65.67 per cent of the allocation. According to the reports of the project directors, most of the foreign-funded projects are moving very slowly.Only three projects out of 11 had utilised all the allocated funds. These projects are: Sindh farm water management project (costing Rs85.481m), reproductive health project (amounting to Rs3.129m) and the support unit devolved social services programme, costing Rs16.6m.

The projects which could not take off during the year are: Japanese-assisted rural road construction project, with allocated funds of Rs100m, the Sindh coastal community development project, with allocated funds of Rs42.808m and Sindh Rural development project, with allocated funds of Rs80m.

The pace of development work needed acceleration in the Sindh road sector development project, which had so far spent Rs1,116.908mn against an allocation of Rs1,500mn.

For the enhanced HIV/Aids control programme, for which Rs12.657mn were allocated, only Rs5.912mn were spent, which comes to 46.7 per cent. Likewise, for the decentralised elementary education project, Rs145.800mn were allocated, while only Rs78.722mn were spent.

For the Karachi Mega City Development project, for which Rs50 million were allocated, only Rs45.607mn were utilised by the closing of the financial year on June 30, which is 91.2 per cent of the amount.

For the Sindh Water sector improvement project, against an allocation of Rs30mn, Rs10.791mn were utilised.

The fisheries and livestock department’s revised ADP allocation was Rs1,323.390mn. But out of Rs1,144.045mn which were released, only Rs922.008mn were utilised, while Rs222.037mn lapsed.

The departments where over Rs100 million lapsed are labour and industries (Rs308.601mn), mines and minerals (Rs209.889mn), irrigation and power (Rs108.45mn), education (Rs172.143mn), health (Rs172.504mn), special projects (Rs302.692mn), special packages (Rs201.065mn), and matching allocation for federal directives (Rs112.891mn).

It is learnt that one of the reasons for the slow pace of utilisation of funds was that review and steering committees’ meetings were not held regularly.