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Over Rs 800 billion projects may be dropped from PSDP

Posted on: Sat July 24, 2010

ISLAMABAD: The government on Friday completed the consultative process with ministries/divisions and provinces for identifying hundreds of development projects worth Rs800 billion to 1,000 billion that are going to be abandoned/deleted from the list of Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), it is learnt.

 It is our aim to reduce the cost of around 2,000 development schemes of PSDP from Rs3 trillion to less than Rs2 trillion as a result of this hectic consultation process under which hundreds of development schemes will be abandoned, a senior official of Planning Commission disclosed while talking to The News.

He said that the process of consultation with the ministries/divisions and other stakeholders was accomplished on Friday afternoon, and findings of consultation in shape of detailed report will be prepared by next week that would be forwarded to Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani for getting final decision on fate of identified development projects. He said that there was around 1,800 to 2,000 development schemes on the PSDP list with estimated cost of over Rs3,000 billion.

 It is our aim to reduce throw forward from Rs3 trillion to around Rs2 trillion, he said and added that it is yet to see that how much the Planning Commission succeeds in convincing the ministries/divisions to identify those projects which would either be delayed or deleted from the PSDP list. We have taken the decision that all those projects, which are nearing to completion, will be given priority and if any project can be completed by increasing its allocation up to few billion rupees then it will be done by cutting cost of any other project of the same ministry, he added.

The official said that the Planning Commission did not scale down the allocation of any ministry/division during this consultative process, as this year allocation would be protected at all cost. He said that the Planning Commission shared its prepared priority list with the ministries/divisions and also sought concerned ministries viewpoint over it for reaching at consensus decision.

However, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq told this scribe that they would take final decision on rationalisation of PSDP by next week. We want to reduce the cost of PSDP projects to less than Rs2 trillion, he said and added that everything would be shared with the media in this regard. However, couple of days back, the deputy chairman told this scribe that they would not force any ministry to set its priorities but hectic consultation were underway to re-prioritise development requirements.

 This is ongoing consultation process which will continue in months ahead, he said and added that work on the projects should not stretch over five years as keeping in view the existing trend of allocation all projects can be completed within such a period.

Courtesy : The News