LAHORE, Feb 20: The provincial government will, during the remaining period of the current fiscal year, provide a sum of Rs1.855 billion to 371 members of the Punjab Assembly for carrying out development works in their respective constituencies.

Punjab finance department officials told Dawn on Thursday that each provincial legislator, whether elected on a general or on a reserved seat, would get Rs5 million for the development in his or her respective constituency under this Constituency Development Scheme.

The government has already sent letters to the district coordination officers (DCOs) in the province to get in touch with the provincial legislators from their respective districts for the preparation of development schemes of their choice.

The DCOs have been allotted one week for the purpose of contacting the MPAs so that work on these schemes could be undertaken from the next month, they said.

The officials said the legislators would submit their schemes through the assistant director of local government (ADLG) whose posts still exist in almost all districts despite the replacement of the old local government system with the new one.

However, they explained, “each legislator would have a choice to get his or her schemes implemented either through the local government of his or her respective district or through the provincial government.”

The funds being provided for the constituency development scheme are not part of the current year’s provincial budget. “These would appear in the revised estimates of the current budget and approved by the provincial legislature at the time of passage of the budget for the next fiscal year in June,” the officials said.

The provincial legislators are being provided these ‘extra’ funds because the new local body system launched in August 2001 has eliminated the role of MNAs and MPAs in the development schemes, empowering the district/city governments to undertake all development in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

“Since the new local government law cannot be amended, at least for the time being, to involve the provincial or national legislators in the development schemes in their districts to please their constituents, the government has decided to accommodate them in this way,” an official of the provincial local government commented.