PESHAWAR: The foreign component of Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2017-18 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has gone up by 127 per cent as compared to the budget for the outgoing fiscal year, according to documents.

However, the documents also show that major portion of the foreign aid, which is to the tune of Rs52 billion, is soft loan while the remaining comprises grants from various countries and donor agencies.

For the next financial year, the size of foreign assistance is Rs82 billion, which is 39 per cent of the total Rs208 billion ADP, reveal the budget documents. The provincial share in ADP is Rs126 billion, which is 64 per cent of the total ADP.The foreign assistance for the current year is Rs22 billion. Out of the total foreign aid, Rs52.55 billion is loan while Rs29.44 billion is grant.

The unprecedented increase in the loan is contrary to the claims made by the leadership of the ruling PTI prior to the 2013 general elections. The PTI leaders had turned foreign aid a curse and had ple dge d that they would make the country free of foreign aid dependency.

The major chunk of the Rs52.05 billion loan is meant for establishment of Peshawar Bas Rapid Transit that would be provided by Asian Development Bank.

While another Rs500 million would be provided to the province by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The total grant of Rs29.44 billion will be provided to the province by the different countries and donor agencies. The UK`s Department for International Development is on top among the donors with a grant of Rs10.638 billion.

The DFID grants is in two portions of which Rs4.835 billion is for the elemen-tary and secondary education department while rest of the amount will go to the provincial government in budgetary support.

The USAID stands second in the list of grant providers to the provincial government as it has taken responsibility of giving Rs7 billion grant to the provincial government.

The European Union`s share in assisting development sector of the province in the shape of grant is Rs2.9 billion while the province would be given Rs2.293 billion under the Multi-Donor Trust Fund being collected f rom dif ferent countries.

The province would also receive Rs1.935 billion grant from the United Nations and Rs1.304 billion from the United Nations Development Programme.

The share of KFW, a German Development Bank, in the grant is Rs831.347 million.

The CVC Japan will provide Rs204 million and Australian Aid Rs100 million in the grants to the provincial government.

Similarly, Unicef will provide Rs40 million and UNOPS Rs96 million to the province. The provincial government hasplanned to utilise the grants in the different departments in the upcoming financialyear.

According to the budget documents, the major beneficiary of the grant is Multi Sectoral Development, which will receive Rs7.85 billion from the grants for different schemes. The elementary and secondary education department would receive Rs6.29 billion, the second big chunk of the total grant.

Out of the total grants, the provincial government has allocated Rs4.474 billion for health department, Rs3.952 for local government department, Rs2.369 billion for industries department, Rs1.741 billion for home department and Rs1.298 billion for agriculture department.

Likewise, Rs419 million has been allocated for higher education department, Rs105 million for roads, Rs100 million for social welfare, Rs96 million for transport department, Rs80 million for urban development department, Rs48.48million for law and justice department and Rs40 million for labour department.