Govt to use ‘eyes in the sky’ to track sluggish projects

In a bid to speed up work on sluggish foreign-funded development projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the federal government has decided to keep a physical check on their progress through satellite-based monitoring. The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC), which had taken up the issue of foreign-funded projects (FFPs) being implemented by the governments of both provinces. The meeting was chaired by Economic Affairs Minister Omar Ayub Khan and attended by KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, among others. The minister told the participants that a “triad” or three-pronged approach would be adopted to monitor these projects, which would entail physical progress verification through the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission’s (Suparco) satellites, financial tracking and prioritisation of fast-moving projects over slow-moving ones, and the use of Gantt charts to track project timelines and ensure timely completion of key goals.