Peshawar: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government failed to release any fund to power generation projects because of the ongoing financial constraints and ‘cold war’ with the federal government.
The KP government has included 53 ongoing and new projects in the Annual development program (ADP) of the current financial year to increase the production of electricity. However the KP Finance Department couldn’t release fund to any of these projects since August as a result construction on the power projects is literally stopped. The sources said construction cost of these projects would increased manifold.
The provincial Power and Energy department has spent Rs620 million from the fund released in the first quarter. The provincial government included 19 projects in the ADP of the Power and Energy Department but just Rs1,000 were allocated in the budget. According to the documents of the KP finance department, the provincial government had allocated Rs26.5bn for 53 power projects in the ADP of the current financial year of which just Rs7 billion have been released until August. The sources of provincial Power and Energy said that the departments is not able to use the fund as its release is limited to document as the fund has not yet been punched.
The KP Power and Energy Department sources added that the department has spent Rs576 million out of the Rs989mn allocated for the solarization project, Rs28mn out of Rs69mn allocated for the Rs88 MW Gabral hydraulic project, Rs2mn out of Rs5 million allocated for the capacity building project in the power sector, while Rs13mn out of Rs106mn allocated for the Institute of Petroleum Technology in Karak district.
According to the sources, ADP projects include such schemes for which most of the funds were to be received from international financial institutions but the fund could not be received on time. The provincial government also failed to release funds from its own resources after the federal government stopped release of funds under the net hydel profit to the province. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in KP is engaged in the “cold war” with the central government. As a result, funds could not be released to the projects on time. If the provincial government continues to have the same financial situation, the cost of these projects is likely to increase by billions.
