KOHAT, June 27: Engineer Syed Kalb-i-Hassan, MPA, announced on Saturday that he had resigned from the membership of all NWFP assembly committees in protest against non-inclusion of Kohat in the annual development programme of 2004-2005.

Speaking at a press conference here at his residence, the MPA regretted that last year provincial Finance Minister Sirajul Haq had promised to allocate funds for five to six important schemes of Kohat, but he did not honour his words.

He told newsmen that the minister had in principle agreed to sanction funds for a girls degree college, 12 primary and two high schools for boys and girls, and to construct a one million gallon water tank in the city. But, he said, none of these schemes had been included in the new ADP, which was a great injustice meted out to the people of Kohat.

The government, he said, had promised Rs5 million for old Liaquat Memorial Hospital and a separate fund for the KDA divisional medical complex.

The provincial lawmaker said Rs1.5 billion had been approved for schemes in the home town of the chief minister and a heavy chunk of amount for Dir district of the finance minister. This clearly showed that the funds were not being spent judiciously, he added.

He questioned how it was possible to totally ignore such an important district in the ADP where thousands of people were still without electricity, water and education facilities. He accused the government of intentionally ignoring Kohat to settle a score with NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah.

He said: "In fact the finance minister has backed out of his promise and has no plausible excuse for not to allocate a few million rupees from a surplus budget for a backward district like Kohat."

He threatened that he would not attend the assembly session unless enough funds had been allocated for his district.

He criticized the other two MPAs from the area and the opposition leader for not participating in his walkout from the budget session.