“We have achieved over 90 per cent financial targets. There has been no issue of under-utilisation of development funds, as provincial government has so far released Rs7 billion for the ongoing schemes, and Rs9.5 billion for the new schemes,” sources in the provincial planning and development department said.

This year's Annual Development Programme (ADP), budgeted at Rs18.5 billion, was 58 per cent higher than last year's Rs11.7 billion.

One of the major reasons behind improvement in the provincial finances was last year's decision of the federal government to pick up a part of the province's overdraft of Rs17.5 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan. The province' financial health was affected badly because of the vicious cycle of debt and interest payments. Sometimes Balochistan government was forced to freeze its current expenditure and development programme.

“In the current fiscal year, the federal government's timely release of funds to the sensitive and restive province was of great help, said Professor Tousif Akhtar, a Balochistan member on the panel of economists, Planning Commission of Pakistan.

He said “in all Rs910 will be transferred to the provinces under NFC award. The provincial government has specially focused on completion of ongoing projects, particularly in water and energy sectors. In the new year's budget, the priorities are likely to be the education, infrastructure development and creation of employment opportunities. Abolition of concurrent list under 19th amendment will transfer 24 departments from the centre to provinces”, he added.

Prioritising the development schemes, proper allocation and efficient utilisation of development funds are the real challenges for economic managers in the province. Though the officials claim to have completed hundreds of ongoing and new projects in the current year, it is yet to be assessed whether the completed projects were growth-oriented and income generating.

Officials claim that of the 353 ongoing projects, 72 have been completed; another 150 projects from a total of 304 new projects were also completed.

Despite official claims of improved utilisation of development funds, one can find work in many projects suspended. For example, while traveling by road from Quetta to Karachi through Mastung, Manguchar, Qalat, Sorab, Khuzdar, Wadh, Lasbella and Hub, one can see construction of roads suspended.

Under the Rs3 billion Public Representatives Programme (PRP), each of the 65 MPAs was allocated Rs46 million for financing development schemes in his constituency. Critics express their doubts over proper and full utilisation of funds allocated to the MPAs in absence of effective accounting and auditing processes for monitoring development works. The province direly needs an efficient and well-coordinated delivery system for its development.

The federal government has released the prime minister's special grant of Rs3 billion in two instalments. The grant, part of the PRP has been used as additional fund to bridge the resource gap for development. Nearly 90 per cent development funds has been utilised and only a paltry amount of Rs20 million was returned as unutilised funds. Except for the Bugti tribal area, development schemes remain largely unaffected across the province.

Another challenge for the provincial economic managers has been to contain the growing amount of throw forward of development schemes, which were delayed over the past five years. This throw forward amount continued to grow due to increasing prices of construction material, which has delayed development schemes. By the fiscal year 2007-08, the amount was brought down to Rs35 billion from Rs55 billion. What actually contains the throw forward amount is the timely release of funds for early completion of the projects.

With inadequate institutional and human capacity, there have been some technical reasons for under-utilisation of development funds and suspension of work on development schemes. The worsening law and order situation is however the key reason for non-completion or halting of many mega infrastructure projects. The government allocated Rs5.5 billion in the current fiscal year for improving law and order situation.

The federal government's 'Balochistan Package' is aimed at the socio-economic uplift of the province. Under the package, some 11000 jobs in different government departments have been created for the locals. About 5000 vacancies have already been filled. Critics however say that politically motivated job creation may lead to overstaffing and inefficiency in the public departments.