Islamabad
\nMinister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Monday said that over 118 different projects worth Rs1,000bn were scrapped due to limited resources.
\nDuring his interaction with the media following the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) meeting in Islamabad, Iqbal said: \u201cToday, [we] have to make difficult decisions about limiting the ongoing projects.\u201d
\nHe said it was difficult to accommodate projects from all ministries within a limited budget of Rs1,000 billion.
\n\u201cNow, we have to make decisions in the national interest,\u201d Iqbal added.
\nOnly key projects can be prioritised due to limited funds, the planning minister said, adding that the provincial-level projects should now be completed by the provinces themselves.
\n\u201cProvinces have far more resources than the federation,\u201d he added. The minister said that everyone must play their part in national development.
\nShedding light on the upcoming budget, the minister said that the economic size target for next year had been set at Rs129 trillion.
\n\u201cThis year\u2019s development budget has been set at Rs1,000 billion,\u201d he added.
\nThe minister said that Rs150bn had been allocated for the social sector and Rs70bn for KP\u2019s merged districts in the next budget.
\n\u201cGDP growth target for the next fiscal year was set at 4.2%,\u201d Iqbal said, adding that the target for exports was set at $35bn.
\nEarlier, giving a blueprint of the annual PSDP for the next fiscal year at the APCC meeting, he said that fiscal space will be provided in the next PSDP for the projects of strategic importance envisioned under Uraan Pakistan.
\nHe mentioned that these projects include the Diamer Bhasha Dam, Sukkur Hyderabad motorway project, N-25 in Balochistan and Karakoram highway phase two.
\nThe minister emphasised the need for greater synergy between the development projects of the Centre and the provinces for the early completion of national priority projects.
\nIqbal said that projects with a foreign component and those nearing completion have also been prioritised in the PSDP.
\nThe minister elaborated that the said allocations for special regions such as AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan and the tribal districts have also been prioritised.
\nThe minister further said that an effort has been made to align the development budget with national priorities while staying within limited resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Monday said that over 118 different projects worth Rs1,000bn were scrapped due to limited resources. During his interaction with the media following the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) meeting in Islamabad, Iqbal said: \u201cToday, [we] have to make difficult decisions about limiting the ongoing projects.\u201d He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":73086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81954,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81942\/revisions\/81954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}