FAISALABAD, Aug 10: The Punjab government has adopted a 'novel strategy' to crown the success of an alleged lottery scheme introduced in the name of the Punjab Development Fund for the provision of facilities to neglected areas.

As a part of the plan, the government has distributed hundreds of thousands of tickets of Rs25 each among the revenue, excise and taxation, agriculture, and health departments, besides tehsil municipal administrations and police with a clear target of selling those to public.

Insiders revealed here on Tuesday that all the local heads of the provincial government departments had been given target of selling tickets worth Rs5 million to Rs10 million to the public or government employees to augment financial resources under the newly created head of the PDF.

They said the revenue officials had handed over these tickets to the staff deputed in the branches of public dealing like registration and transfer of properties, challans of minor offences and domicile.

The revenue staff was forcibly selling tickets to people for all type of transactions. The heads of police stations, posts and traffic personnel had also been given scores of tickets of the PDF and asked to sell the same to motorists, transporters and others concerned before Aug 13 so that their numbers could be included in the draw scheduled to be held on 16th of this month, they said.

The tickets worth Rs5 million had been handed over to the heads of all the branches of the TMA in the district. The visitors to the local councils were being forced to purchase these tickets for getting their petty problems solved.

Likewise, the Excise and Taxation Department had distributed its quota of tickets to the management of local cinema houses and theatres and asked to sell these with those of films and stage plays.

People visiting the excise office for registration or transfer of their vehicles to some other names were also being forced to purchase the PDF tickets. Insiders further said the officials concerned had been asked to achieve the target of selling tickets at all costs, otherwise they would have to face the music.

A senior administrative officer told Dawn on the condition of anonymity that selling such type of tickets to the public or government employees was not a new thing. All the previous governments had already done the same job and the present regime was following in the footsteps of their predecessors.

He claimed that PDF tickets worth over Rs20 million had been distributed among the local government departments, local councils and law-enforcement agencies to sell those to the people. A majority of the government officials would pay heavy price of this job, as they would have to purchase the same from their own pocket, he added.