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FAISALABAD, Feb 28: The district government has formally passed a resolution for the abolition of toll from five main roads in the district ending two-month long tussle between the provincial assembly members, councillors and opposition parties.
At a special session held under the chair of Convener Raza Nasarullah Ghuman here on Saturday, District Nazim Zahid Nazir presented a resolution before the house disclosing that a sub-committee formed to review the decision had recommended withdrawal of toll in the larger public interest.
The convener put the resolution before the House for voting or discussion, but the House passed it unanimously.
Giving details of the toll abolition, the District Nazim informed the House that a 10-member committee comprising councillors - Sharafat Ali, Tariq Bashir, Dilbar Hameed, Rizwan Sadiq, Taseer Iqbal, Rana Munawar, Mushtaq Toor, Ijazul Hassan, Shahid Mehmood and Ashfaq Awan - had been constituted by him.
He said the committee met thrice and recommended abolition of toll after declaring it against the interest of citizens. In the light of committee's recommendations, the resolution had been put before the house for approval.
Efforts, he said, were also being made for the abolition of toll from some other roads in the district as well.
The district government had awarded the toll collection contract on Sargodha Road for Rs6.3 million, Jhang Road for Rs4.6 million, Resalewala for Rs6.3 million, Khurrianwala to Jaranwala Road for Rs430,000 and Jaranwala and Satiana Roads for Rs280,000.
Contractors had started collecting tax from Jan 1 for a period of six months till June 30. But after the abolition of the contracts, the tax collection would be stopped from March 1.
MASTER PLAN: A master plan has been evolved for the provision of basic amenities to the people, improvement of roads network, setting up of a 90-bed burn unit, dualizing major highways and ensuring required payment of crops to growers.
This was stated by District Nazim Zahid Nazir while talking to newsmen here on Saturday.
He said to save the city roads network from collapse, weighing scales would be established on main roads of the district where heavy vehicles carrying all types of load would be checked.
Besides, he said weighing scales would be set up on the city roads leading to sugar mills and fruit and grain markets to save growers from kanda mafia who were fleecing them through defective weighing scales.He said formal projects had been finalized for the execution of master plan while both federal and provincial governments had pledged to provide required funds in phases. In addition, several foreign donor agencies had also given green signal to provide financial assistance for various development projects.
He said all main roads in the district, including inter-city roads of all six tehsils - City, Chak Jhumra, Sadar, Samundri, Jaranwala and Tandlianwala would be modernized for providing better communication facilities to the people.
Final touches, he claimed, were being given to a gigantic project of Motorway-4, which would be constructed between Faisalabad and Multan. The construction work of Faisalabad-Sheikhupura dual carriageway would also commence within next fortnight for which the Frontier Works Organization had been directed accordingly, he said.
Zahid Nazir said the prime minister had agreed to provide a special grant for the improvement and widening of Sargodha Road. Similarly, he said the chief minister also promised to provide funds for widening of the Jhang Road.
The 3,600 kilometre long roads network in the district required huge funds for repair and maintenance and the task would be achieved under a phased programme, he said.
At present, he said the district government was collecting Rs220 million annually on account of different taxes and levies which was meagre as compared with the expenditure as well as development requirements of the people.
In the current budget of Rs4.28 billion, a huge sum of Rs960 million had been allocated for uplift purposes. Efforts were being made to allocate over Rs1 billion for development schemes out of a total Rs5 billion of the coming annual budget of the district government.
The District Nazim said that efforts were also being made to restart the work on the gigantic project of water supply with a huge foreign aid of Rs4.5 billion.
Regarding the shifting of the 90-bed burn unit costing around Rs159 million from Faisalabad to Lahore, he said the project had been approved for Faisalabad, but the similar project was being approved for Lahore.
"We are not against the setting up of such unit in Lahore, but we are of the view that this burn unit is a must for the people of Faisalabad," he added.
