KARACHI: The Sindh government spent only 58 percent or Rs37.169 billion out of the total amount of Rs63.553 billion allocated as development funding in the July-April period of the ongoing fiscal year.
The amount of Rs10.61 billion, or 57 percent allocated for local government, public health engineering and rural development was released out of total Rs18.76 billion. However, the departments utilised only Rs6.30 billion in the corresponding period. The document showed that a hefty Rs350 million was allocated to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat for various schemes. Of which, Rs61.94 million was disbursed and Rs26.48 million was used in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.
Governor’s Secretariat used only Rs23.97 million of the total release of Rs277.16 million in this period. Only water schemes of Thar Coal Development utilised nearly 100 percent of the release of Rs3 billion by the April-end. Total Rs10.146 billion, or 85 percent of the total allocation of Rs12 billion, were released to the department and it spent Rs8.53 billion in the July-April period.
The government allocated nine billion rupees to the works and services department and released Rs6.105 billion, or 68 percent of the total allocation. Of that, Rs3.758 billion have so far been utilised. Major spending was road construction. The government earmarked Rs3.5 billion for various development schemes in the Board of Revenue. The board spent Rs1.266 billion out of the total release of Rs2.461 billion by the end of April.
Education department remained neglected in this period. Only Rs3.57 billion was released to the department, 36 percent of the total allocation of Rs10 billion. The department utilised only Rs1.881 billion: Rs64.89 million was used on schemes in elementary education, Rs29.78 million for teacher education, Rs1.125 billion on secondary education and Rs653.99 million on college education. Not a rupee was released or used for the development of the Sindh Education Foundation, although the allocation was Rs512.5 million.
