Multan's, Larkana's development projects: federal government allocates special funds

The federal government allocated special funds for development projects of Larkana and Multan districts. The packages for road maintenance in Multan and Larkana were reportedly allocated on a priority basis as compare to other development projects.
Official sources in the Communication Ministry revealed that diversion of funds from on-going projects to Multan and Larkana was leading to considerable escalation in their cost. The sources added that some projects were facing an extraordinary delay due to shortage of funds. The worst case scenario in terms of massive cuts has been evident in Balochistan road projects.
In the last financial year, the government made a massive cut of Rs 100 billions in the federal development budget due to financial crisis, which largely affected projects in Punjab and Sindh, except in Multan, the home town of the Prime Minister, and Larkana.
According to official sources, this year, the federal government slashed the development budget for Punjab projects by Rs 26 billions, bringing it down to Rs 19 billions. Punjab has 317 projects with a total cost of Rs 587 billion. The federal government had originally earmarked Rs 45 billions for these projects.
For current year of 2011-12, more than Rs 7.9 billions were allocated in PSDP for various development projects for district Larkana and Multan but around Rs 785 millions were released so far, it is learnt. Around Rs 4.7 billions were allocated for different projects of Larkana in financial year 2011-12 but Rs 596.656 millions have so far been released. According to official documents, the projects of Larkana include Rehabilitation of Larkana-Naudero Lahki Road, Dualization/Rehabilitation of Larkan Moenjo-Daro Road up to Airport, Rehabilitation of Larkana-Rasheed Wagan-Nasirbad Road, Larkan Sewerage Project etc.
The projects of Multan included Multan Inner Ring Road, Khanewal-Multan Inter District Road, Beautification of Qila Kohna Qasim Bagh Multan, Establishment of Sub Campus of Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan etc. According to PPP sources, the party has inducted maximum parliamentarians in the cabinet from central Punjab to win forthcoming general elections in Punjab. They said the PPP is preparing a dynamic strategy to launch maximum development schemes through these ministries in central Punjab to win forthcoming elections.