PM ‘displeased’ with Punjab over slow-pace work on MDGs

The federal government has written a letter to the Punjab government showing concern as why the execution of work is being carried out slowly. The federal government has so far identified 4141 development schemes in 148 National Assembly constituencies after realizing funds of Rs 10.3 billion during the financial year 2015-16.

According to the letter written by Director General Local Government Punjab to the districts government on the instructions of the federal government, the copy of which is available with ARY News, only 59 per cent work was done through utilizing only 53 per cent of the total released funds.

Majority of the development schemes approved by the PM Secretariat include construction of major roads, supply of gas pipelines and provision of electricity supply to the far flung areas and construction of schools and hospital buildings.

“But there are districts like Lodhran which failed to spend a single penny throughout the year despite having 28 development schemes approved by the federal government which also released 148 millions funds against them.”

There are other districts like Rawalpindi, Narowal, Multan and Sialkot which could only use approximately 15 per cent of the total development funds.

Likewise, the letter states that the federal has approved 4732 development schemes and released Rs 6656 million funds for Punjab where total utilization of funds was 88 per cent against incumbent year’s 51 per cent.

The letter written by DG LG&CD states that the districts government still have 30 per cent funds which are around Rs 3234 million unutilized with district government for the years 2014-15 and 2015-16.

The government has warned the district governments to complete the remaining physical work before the end of current financial year. The current financial year is ending the mid of June and the question lies whether these district government have the capacity to spend billions of rupees remaining amount within 20 days.