PESHAWAR: The cash-starved Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has again turned to the hydel development fund (HDF) to secure a multibillion rupee loan after its months long efforts to use the employees` pension fund for the purpose come to naught.

The HDF was created in 1992 with the stated aim of developing the province`s hydel potential and being managed by a management board headed by the chief minister.

Officials in the know put the total worth of the fund at over Rs30 billion.

They told Dawn that the KP governor had promulgated the KP Energy and Power Development Fund (amendment) Ordinance 2017 on March 7 enabling the provincial government to utilise around Rs15 billion from the HDF to meet its immediate financial needs.

The official said the ordinance was more orless similar to the one promulgated in April 2016 to allocate the same amount of money when the province faced a severe financial crunch.

`The ordinance allows provincial government to utilize the HDF money for any other purpose other than its stated aim of using for hydel power generation as it may deem fit,` he said.

Another official said on the condition of anonymity that earlier, the provincial government was hopeful about securing over Rs17 billion loan from its employees` pension fund but the reluctance of the fund`s management board to lend forced the provincial government to seek money from the HDF.

The issue of obtaining Rs17.7 billion loan from the pension and general provident fund came up twice in the meetings of the fund`s board last year, first on November 7, 2016, and then on December 20, 2016.

However, on both occasions, the board showed strong reservations about the venture and asked the provincial government for higher interest on the loan, which it was not ready to pay.

The official said the proposal to secure Rs17.5 billion from the pension fund was still pending.

He said the government had no other option left and therefore, it had to tap the fund`s resources to meet immediate needs.In April 2016, the KP government had borrowed around Rs15 billion from the HDF to bridge its growing budget deficit through an ordinance.

The sources said the government repaid the borrowed amount later.

The finance department had projected Rs15 billion loan from HDF facility in the revenue estimates for the current fiscal.

In addition, the government had projected to receive Rs12 billion from the domestic borrowing. However, it has yet to utilise this option.

The KP government also plans to receive around Rs12.7 billion from the sale of its lands but it suffered a setback when a portion of the plan, which was related to the sale of plots in the province`s biggest industrial estate in Hayatabad, was resisted by the planning and development department with the contention that the move would cause massive joblessness in the province.

The details released in February show that the province`s tax machinery has poorly performed as it managed to collect Rs7.041 billion only during the first six months of the year against the tax revenue target of over Rs18 billion.

Both energy and power and finance ministers were not available for comments.