Development compromised

AS surging debt is eating up almost half of the resources, the development programme has been compromised in the new budget as it gets reduced allocations and no worthwhile new project is proposed to be initiated during next year. The budget envisages Rs 3,675 billion for national development programme — Federal PSDP Rs 1,000 billion; provincial development programme Rs 2,224 billion and an investment of Rs. 451 billion by State-owned Enterprises (SOEs). Sixty percent of the Federal PSDP will go to key sectors like transport and communication; water resources and energy while the remaining allocations would be shared by IT; Science and Technology; agriculture; health and education. Call it bad planning or lack of vision, there seems to be no logical priority in allocating resources for development projects. This is evident from the fact that meagre allocation of Rs. 2 billion have been made for the crucially important project of Thar Coal Connectivity that aims to link local energy resources with the national rail and road network. Allocations for key hydropower projects of Dassu, Diamer-Bhasha, Mohmand and Tarbela Extension are also nominal, which means further delay in their completion and resultantly cost escalation. As for physical planning and housing, it is appreciable that the Government has allocated Rs. 54.6 billion for construction of 150,000 low-cost and climate resistant housing units at federal and provincial levels. Digital Master Plans will be prepared for ten major cities, which will, hopefully, go a long way in ensuring planned development and improvement of civic amenities for their residents. As part of industrial research and development, industrial designing and automation centres will be set up in Karachi, Lahore and Sialkot besides establishment of a support centre for dental and surgical instruments. Another important project envisages establishment of a Special Economic Zone on 6,860 acres of land of the Pakistan Steel Mills. The Government