ISLAMABAD, Jun 8 (APP):The Federal Government had allocated a whooping fund of Rs 265 billion for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in the provincial and federal budgets during the Financial Year 2023.
According to the Economic Survey 2022-23, in Pakistan due to huge urbanization and environmental changes, there is a dire need to focus on the quality of drinking water in the country. Moreover, the growing population, further accelerates the demand for safe drinking water.
During FY2023, a review of the budget documents showed an upwards trend of WASH allocations from 2018 to 2023.
“There is an increase of 152 percent in budgetary allocations for WASH in FY2023 as compared to FY2019,” the Survey added.
Similarly, an increase of more than 253 percent in WASH expenditures in FY2022 as compared to FY2019 had been observed. The overall utilization of the allocated budget for WASH was 86 percent in FY2022, while it was 83 percent in FY2021, 55 percent in FY2020 and 57 percent in FY2019.
For the last four years, the utilization of current budget for WASH services was more than 94 percent. On the other side, the utilization of the development budget had also improved from 39 percent in FY2019 to 78 percent in FY2022.
“There is a visible increase in the budgetary allocations for WASH during the last five years. This is coupled with investments made under enabling environment by different development partners along Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCCC) like Joint Sector Reviews, Policy Papers, WASH Sector Development Plans, etc,” the Survey noted.
An overview of overall WASH allocations for FY2023 in Pakistan revealed that the highest allocations were made in the Sindh province (38.3 percent), followed by Punjab (24.5 percent), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (20.6 percent) and Balochistan (16.4 percent), respectively.
