HYDERABAD, Feb 6: Members of the Hyderabad District Council have complained that the district government has neglected the Hyderabad taluka (rural) in allocation of development funds in the budget for 2005-06.
The council began a debate on budgetary proposals on Monday.
At the outset, the council condemned the publication of sacrilegious cartoons in European newspapers and demanded that the countries should apologize for it.
Two identical resolutions on the issue, which were not on the agenda, were tabled by Arshad Naeem Taimori and Nasir Baloch. Convener Zafar Ali Rajput observed that he was allowing the resolutions because it concerned the Ummah.
The convener asked the chairman of the council’s finance and planning committee to submit proposals over the budget but the chairman requested him to first seek opinion of members whether they were interested in debate on the budgetary allocations.
Mr Rajput instructed the council secretary to write letters to the DCO and the DPO to ensure presence of EDOs or DOs and the city SP in every session of the council.
Initiating the debate, Zahida Memon said the rural taluka had been neglected as only 15 per cent of the budget had been earmarked for the taluka and it had been given nothing in education and health sectors and no posts of woman health visitors had been created.
She said the Hyderabad Development Authority had not introduced any scheme for the taluka. She said there was no mention how Rs120 million would be distributed among the district’s talukas.
Yamin Soomro said details of expenditures of 2004-05 had not been mentioned in the budget document. He said the HDA had recovered a huge amount of development charges from the Qasimabad taluka but the taluka had been ignored.
He said eight schemes had been given to the City taluka, five to the Latifabad taluka, only one to the Qasimabad taluka and no scheme to the rural taluka.
He said that the schedule of new establishment of Qasimabad had not been approved.
Mehboob Abro said that of the total budget, 80 per cent expenses were non-development expenditures. He pointed towards deteriorating conditions of the Rani Bagh and said it needed improvement.
He regretted that the people of Qasimabad did not have access to safe drinking water. He said the drainage system had collapsed.
Rao Asghar Ali from the rural taluka proposed that the district’s four talukas should contribute 10 per cent each of their funds towards improvement of the Rani Bagh. He said the rural health centre of Tandojam also needed to be upgraded.
He said instead of allocating Rs33.930 million for the Citizens Community Boards, Rs3.9 million should be earmarked for the boards and the rest of the amount should be diverted to the development budget.
Khan Mohammad spoke of poor conditions of graveyards in his taluka.
He said sewerage in the Gulshan-i-Khair Mohammad scheme had collapsed and no new scheme had been given to union council-15 of Latifabad.
Abbas Khan and Shafqat Shah called for equal distribution of funds among union councils. They said it should be explained in the budget document how funds would be distributed between union councils.
Sajida Baloch expressed dissatisfaction over the budget, saying the Site area had been neglected though six union councils were located in this part of the city.
Rana Siddiqui praised the district government for allocating Rs4 million for 18 women.
Munawar Khan Zai said the budget was balanced.
Arshad Naeem Tamori said every sector had been given 10 to 20 per cent enhancement in terms of funds allocations and added that funds given to the talukas would be utilized on schemes given by union council nazims.
Hussain Bux Hussaini and minority member Mushtaq Victor raised the issue of poor conditions of graveyards and said that previously schemes of Rs3.7 million to Rs1.3 million had been given to union councils but this year no such allocations had been made.
Mohammad Ali Gohar and Ghulam Rasool Samoon also said the budget was balanced and added that resources would be distributed as per requirement of the area.
Mr Gohar called for creation of another taluka comprising union councils of Phulelli and Paretabad.
