Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar on Thursday said that the province has set a new record of 96 per cent utilization of development funds in a period of ten years. 

This was stated by him while presiding over a meeting to review progress on ADP schemes. Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht, chairman P&D, secretaries of C&W and finance departments, SMU head and others attended the meeting. 

Usman Buzdar asked the departments to early submit PC-I of their schemes according to relevant rules to speed up the development work. He appreciated the fact that the PTI-led government presented the largest development budget in provincial history as the collective volume of PSDP and annual development program has reached Rs.740 billion. 

As compared with the previous year, a 66 per cent increase has been made in the current years development budget, he accentuated. The government has started numerous schemes under the ADP valuing Rs.560 billion, he said. 

The chief minister clarified that delay will not be tolerated as 98 per cent of ADP schemes have already been approved. Progress on such schemes should be monitored through a foolproof mechanism, he directed. 

Punjab will collect Rs.400 billion revenue in the current financial year from its own resources and it is noteworthy that Rs.51 billion has already been collected in a period of three months which is 41 per cent more than the estimated target, the CM continued. 

Usman Buzdar notified the participants that Rs. 354 billion revenue was collected in the previous year which was 18 per cent more than the fixed target. As compared with the previous year, a 28 per cent increase has been made in the current years provincial revenue target, he added. 

Meanwhile, Punjab was providing various tax exemptions of more than Rs.50 billion to different sectors. Similarly, the government was introducing holistic reforms in the pension system, human resource management and property tax to further streamline the system, the CM concluded.