HARIPUR, Oct 3: Funds to the tune of Rs 31.5 million specifically set aside for CCB-oriented uplift schemes are lying unused for lack of mobilization and technical assistance.

The Community Citizen Boards (CCB) have failed to submit their plans to the project approving and executing agencies in Haripur district by Sept 15, the date fixed for submission of project proposals, sources told Dawn here on Sunday.

However, at the union council level, some NGOs helped finalize some CCB-oriented project proposals and complete the base work, informed sources said. The CCBs are mandatory part of the local government system, which necessitated, under the LGO 2001, contribution of 20 per cent in an uplift scheme on the part of community and 80 per cent of the total cost by union, tehsil, and district administration on the basis of the size of a project.

For the union council level uplift projects, official sources said the ceiling was fixed at Rs 100,000 and above Rs 100,000 up to Rs 250,000 while a project costing above Rs 250,000 were placed in the financial jurisdiction of tehsil and district administration respectively.

According to community development sources, 309 CCBs have so far been registered during the last three months while a dozen more were undergoing registration process in Haripur. Out of these registered CCBs, about 155 were formed by Hazara Development and Advocacy Foundation (Hadaf) Haripur and offering technical assistance to CCBs.

At a training session last month, the participants were imparted training of preparation of budget proposals, evaluation and monitoring of projects, also completed prioritization of sectors they wanted to carry out first.

On this occasion the Tehsil Administration Haripur had also asked the office bearers of CCBs to submit their projects proposal by Sept 15. However the engineers of TMA Haripur had so far finalized not a single CCB scheme and forwarded to tehsil council for approval while the tenure of the sitting councils was nearing its end next year observers believed.

The district council had Rs 20 million, TMA Haripur had Rs 8.5 million while TMA Ghazi had Rs three million at their disposal for CCB's uplift schemes and due to delay in project finalization the funds to the tune of Rs 31.5 million were still lying unspent in the district.

It was also reported that the at district level the prioritization of schemes to be launched by the district council with financial and physical contribution of communities had not yet effected.

An office bearer of a CCB held the engineers of TMA responsible of delay in the execution of the schemes in Haripur, adding that owing to typical working style of the government servants, an unnecessary delay was being caused in the finalization of CCB s projects which ultimately discouraged communities.

The engineers complained of shortage of engineering staff and overwork at the TMA and denied that they were either causing delay. They were of the view that although the office bearers of Newly formed CCBs were imparted training about preparing of project proposals, budgeting, evaluation and monitoring at union and tehsil level, none of the CCBs could submit their project proposals in line with the requirements.

Meanwhile at union level the Hadaf NGO had hired a private engineer for conducting survey and finalizing of the projects in various villages. Sources at the Hadaf NGO said that it had completed proposals of 13 uplift projects at UC Beer, seven at Rehana UC and six at Baka union council and some of the projects had been inaugurated last week. The CCBs have demanded that the NGOs which are working in this field should make their private engineers available at TMA office.