KARACHI: The provincial government decreased the allocation for sports and youth affairs department from 1% to 0.86% of the total budget for the fiscal year 2017-18.
Budget allocation for the sports and youth affairs department for the coming year is Rs2.1 billion, of which sports department’s budget is Rs1.66 billion, while 440 million is for the youth affairs department. A total of 28 schemes were approved in the budget, which includes schemes that have been pending since more than 10 years.
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Out of their 24 schemes from last year, the sports department completed 16 schemes while eight remain incomplete, that have been extended. The date for completion of the four schemes has been extended from June 2017 to June 2019. These projects are construction of sports stadium in eight cities of Sindh, mini sports complex at Kunri, Malakhara Stadium at Sehwan Sharif and construction of players hostel and fitness gym at Railway ground in Sukkur.
Out of the four schemes, the first two have been pending since more than 10 years. The construction of sports stadium in eight cities, which includes Matiari, Jamshoro, Hyderabad, Tharparkar, Sanghar, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Tando Allahyar, was approved in 2006 and is now supposed to be completed by 2019. Meanwhile, the construction of mini sports complex at Kurni, Umerkot, was approved in 2007 and is proposed to be completed by 2019.
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The remaining four schemes from last year’s ongoing schemes are also targeted to be completed by 2019. Out of the 25 proposed new schemes in the last budget, 21 schemes were approved while three were not approved. One of the schemes, which is the construction of Malakhra ground near Dargah Hazrat Ahmed Shah Lakyari in Matiari, has again been included in the new schemes. Its estimated cost has been increased from Rs20 million to Rs25 million.
Other than this, the budget for youth affairs department has been increased from Rs425 million to Rs440 million. Out of their 11 ongoing schemes of the previous budget, six schemes have been completed while the remaining will be completed by 2018 and 2019.
Six out of seven proposed schemes from the previous budget have been included in the budget for upcoming fiscal year, while eight new schemes have been proposed for 2017-18.