HYDERABAD, July 8: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has said that the district government is striving for the development of the entire district without any discrimination regardless of party affiliation.

He said that preference was being given to those areas which had been neglected in the past by successive governments.

He was speaking at a reception hosted in his honour in Mureed Sipyo village of the Hyderabad rural taluka on Saturday.

A large number of UC nazims, naib nazims and councillors and officials were present on the occasion.

He said that a network of water and sewerage lines was being laid and roads, schools and hospitals were being constructed in those areas which had been neglected in the past.

He said that in seven months, the district government had completed development works in the rural taluka, including UC Mosa Khatian, at a cost of Rs180 million.

He said that more development schemes at a cost of tens of millions of rupees were in the pipeline. He said that development work in UC Mosa Khatian would be started very soon.

The president of the Sipyo Welfare Association, Mr Saleem Sipyo, presented an address of welcome underlining the problems of the village. UC Nazim Ghulam Rasool Samoo, Badar Memon and Mohammad Khan Sipyo also spoke on the occasion.

AEC: Thatta Assistant Election Commissioner Abdul Zubair Khan said that the commission had prepared phase-wise strategy to prepare new voter lists based on computerized national identity cards (CNICs) to enable eligible voters to cast votes in 2007 general elections, says a press release.

Mr Khan said that in the first phase the commission with teachers’ help would launch door to door campaign for the preparation of CNICs from July 14-28.

In the second phase the teams would distribute blank registration forms among people having CNICs and then collect the filled ones to register them as new voters from July 29 to Sept 11, he said.

He advised girls and boys who became 18 years up to Jan 1, 2006 to apply for CNICs which was a first step towards getting registered as voters. Those who had CNICs but their names were not on the voter lists to contact election commissioner’s office in Thatta, he said.

No one would be listed as voter without production of a CNIC, he warned. Many teams with required material were being dispatched to different areas to facilitate the illiterate and the poor, he added.