PESHAWAR: The members of opposition benches in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly lashed at provincial government for allocating meagre amount for the projects with billions of rupees estimated cost in the budget for year 2017-18.

They said that such schemes couldn`t be completed in the next 100 years if the provincial government kept allocating such a meagre amount for them.

The debate on the budget continued for the second consecutive day in the provincial assembly with Speaker Asad Qasier in the chair.

Parliamentary leader of ANP Sardar Hussain Babak drew the attention of the house towards the meagre allocation made in the Annual Development Programme for the next financial year.

He said that provincial government allocated only Rs100, 000 for the development of Petroleum Block, a mega project with estimated cost of Rs5.77 billion. If the allocation was made in the same ratio, the project would take 120 years to complete, he said.

`Another ADP project titled establishment of Oil Marketing and Storage with the estimated cost of Rs6.3 billion got allocation of only Rs100, 000,` said Mr Babak. He added that everything in the budgetdocuments was based on assumption.

Similarly, he said, government planned to install solar panels in 4,000 mosques with estimated cost of Rs2 billion but again the allocation in the budget was only Rs100, 000 for the scheme. He said that for different development schemes in energy sector, estimated cost was Rs68 billion, but allocation for such projects was only Rs40 million.

Mr Babak said that af ter the budget speech of Finance Minister Muzaffar Said, the lawmakers were happy over announcement of development schemes in their constituencies but their happiness was soon turned into sadness when they read the budget documents containing meagre allocation for those schemes.

He said that provincial government was propagating signing of MoUs in China and attracting billions of dollars investment to the province but there was no mention of such schemes in the budget documents. `The government should inform people what it has done or achieved in China in terms of investment,` he said.

Without naming Frontier Works Organisation, Mr Babak said that an executing agency, which was a sacred cow in the country, was given billions of projects without any bidding. `Now the reports of kickbacks being given to some influential people in these contracts have also started emerging,` he said.

Participating in the debate, MuftiSaid Janan of JUI-F said that budget documents showed that the province would get Rs39 billion for war against terrorism from the federal government in the upcoming financial year.

He said that the province was receiving those funds since long but unfortunately the districts severely hit by the militancy were ignored by the authorities at the helm of affairs.

`These funds are utilised in the constituencies of those MPAs, who are close to the chief minister,` he said.

Saleem Khan of PPP said that government should accept the reality that it presented a deficit budget. He said that government was eying billions of grants to be given by donor agencies. `What the government would do if the grants are not released to it,` he said.

Qurban Khan of PTI said that irregularities were committed in the execution of Billion Tree Afforesting Project. The irregularities would defame PTI chief Imran Khan and provincial government would be responsible for it, he said.

Responding to the criticism about loans for mega projects, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that the loans for Peshawar Buss Rapid Transit and Swat Expressway would not be burden on the provincial kitty.

`The loans would be repaid from the income to be generated through these projects,` he added.

The session was adjourned till Monday.