July 12, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

HARIPUR, July 11: District Nazim Dr Raja Aamir Zaman has presented Rs854.25 million budget for the fiscal year 2003-4.

The Nazim, while presenting the budget during district assembly session on Thursday, said that Rs187.93 million would be spent on the development of district whereas Rs660.23 million was earmarked for non-developmental expenditures out of the district’s total outlay of Rs854.25 million for the fiscal year 2003-4. He said that Rs6.08 million would be a surplus amount during the new fiscal year.

The budget session was presided over by District Naib Nazim Mohammad Riaz Khan Jadoon.

Providing details about the total income either in the shape of grants from the provincial government or district’s own sources, Mr Zaman informed the house that out of the total income of Rs854.25 million the district had earmarked Rs848.16 million for expenditures with a saving of Rs6.08 million as surplus amount during the new fiscal.

Reading out from the budget document which carried a number of errors and anomalies, the Nazim said that Rs267.72 million projected as the total receivable income to the district from various sources while expenditures other than salaries was estimated at Rs261.63 million.

A sum of Rs51.65 million earmarked for district’s Annual Development Programme (ADP) would be spent under a Provincial Finance Commission Award’s prescribed formula of 25 per cent allocation for ongoing schemes, 25 per cent for Citizen Community Board (CCB) and remaining amount would be distributed among district, tehsil and union administrations with a fixed share of 60, 30 and 10 per cent, he added.

TMA Haripur would receive Rs15.25 million in lieu of the octroi tax, TMA Ghazi would be disbursed Rs900,000 from the same head.

A big chunk of the budget amounting to Rs660.23 million was earmarked for non-development expenditures which included Rs586.52 million for salaries of devolved departments of the provincial government and Rs73.70 million was projected as non-salary administrative budget of the district.

The district government had also created a new income head “Promotion of Birth Registration” with an initial allocation of Rs1,000.

About the surplus amount the Nazim told the house that as the district did not expect as much grants as it received during the previous year, the administration decided to prepare a surplus budget.

He asked the chairman of the house’s standing committee on finance to forward proposals for effecting enhancement in the district’s resources by adopting the taxation course to enable the district receive matching grants from the province under provincial finance commission award conditions.