ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: An amount of Rs846.47 million has been disbursed among 328 members of the National Assembly under the Tameer-i-Pakistan Programme during 2002-03.

This was said by Minister of State Maj Tahir Iqbal (retired), in charge for local government and rural development, in response to a question of Mohammad Hanif Abbasi in the National Assembly here on Monday.

He said a development fund of Rs5 million each was approved for all members of the National Assembly and 328 members had so far utilized the funds for different schemes like construction of roads, provision of electricity, gas and telephone facilities in their constituencies.

The house was informed that the Motorway Police had so far recovered Rs121.9 million fine during the last three months. The average monthly profit of the Motorway Police was Rs10.11 million out of an average monthly income of Rs46.56 million. Out of this Rs46.5 million, Rs28 million was operational cost while Rs8.36 million was maintenance cost.

The total strength of the Motorway Police was 3,700 out of which 1,931 were officers from inspector general to sub- inspectors, two drivers, 57 cameramen, 495 patrolling officers, 465 junior patrolling and 750 others.

During the question-hour session, MNA Malik Zaheer Abbasi suggested the government to remove 12 toll tax plazas situated after every few kilometres between Lahore and Rawalpindi. This would also help in increasing the attendance of the members in the house, he said.

However, Parliamentary Secretary for Communications Dr Abdul Qadir said the suggestion would be considered by the government and decided in accordance with law.

He said a summary had been moved and a uniform policy was expected in the near future about the collection of toll taxes from different highways and road networks in the country.

Controversy was also created when the parliamentary secretary said the Mianwali-Muzzaffargarh Road did not fall under the administrative control of the National Highway Authority (NHA) while Dr Sher Afghan was pressing that the road did not come under the control of the Punjab government. Dr Afgan claimed that the parliamentary secretary did not have the complete picture.

Minister for Communication Ahmed Ali, in a written statement, said 500,000 commemorative stamps had so far been printed on the occasion of August 14, 2003. He said with the prior approval of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), only commemorative postal stamps were being printed by the Pakistan Post Foundation Press since July 14, 2003 due to high costs being charged by Pakistan Security Printing Corporation. The foundation has printed nine different types of stamps so far.

To another question, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Chaudhry Noraiz Shakoor said at present, 126 fields in the country were producing oil and gas.