KARACHI, June 30: Lyari Town municipal administration reiterated on Wednesday its demand for financial support of the government to meet its development needs.

Because of its fiscal disabilities resulting from exclusion of its commercial areas, the town's major source of income is only Octroi/Zila Tax (OZT) through which the administration could hardly meet its development needs.

This was stated by Lyari Town Nazim Abdul Khalique Juma during a post-budget briefing at the town office on Wednesday. Naib Nazim Malik Mohammad Khan Awan and other town officials attended the briefing.

Abdul Khalique Juma said that the issue had been raised on many forums, however, this could not be resolved for the last three years. He maintained that the issue was also discussed with President Musharraf during his visit to Karachi.

The president had also promised to resolve the issue, he added. He said that efforts were being made to convince the relevant authorities to take up the issue on the basis of an appropriate sharing formula, which was yet to be announced.

He regretted that with exception to salaries and diesel, no fund was released to the town for development purpose till February 2003. He pointed that the town could only get Rs15 million as loan in 2002 which were spent on different schemes. However, he said, shortage of funds continued in the 2003-2004 fiscal.

Highlighting the important features of budget for the next fiscal, he said that the estimated revenue was Rs511.499 million and expected expenditure was Rs25.575 million showing a surplus budget of Rs25.575 million. Out of the total budget, he said that Rs53 million had been allocated for development projects.

He admitted that the development targets could not be achieved last year due to paucity of funds. He called for providing funds to the town keeping in view its density of the population.

The nazim reiterated that the government should help the town by providing aid and grants so that it could execute its development activities smoothly. Also present at the briefing, Naib Nazim Malik Mohammad Awan criticized the indifferent attitude of provincial and city governments for ignoring the financial needs of the town and giving it a step-motherly treatment.

He argued that the town was being victimized on political grounds and regretted that the administration could not concentrate on development due to paucity of funds. Besides, he said that the town administration remained engaged in transport, water and sewerage problems.

The town nazim said that a number of communications had been sent to the authorities concerned for shifting of transport business from residential areas of the town. However, he regretted that despite its persistence demand, no favourable response had received so far.

SHAH FAISAL: A Rs225.850 million budget of Shah Faisal Town for the fiscal 2004-05 was presented at its council by Town Nazim Mushtaq Ahmed. Of the total outlay, Rs84.8 million had been earmarked for development works, while Rs140.9 million had been shown as non-development expenditure, indicating that more amount would be consumed under the heads of establishment, contingencies and maintenance, etc.