SWABI, July 2: The Swabi district nazim on Monday presented the district council budget of Rs1,452.38 million for the year 2007-08 amid strong protests by the opposition here.

When the district nazim started his budget speech the opposition, led by their leader Ashfaq Khan, started raising slogans against the budget, asking what was in it for them.

Throughout the nazim’s speech, opposition members continued shouting and some of the members tore copies of the budget documents, saying the budget was unacceptable to them. However, the district nazim kept on delivering his speech.

The district nazim said that in comparison to the outgoing year the budget had been increased by 11 per cent. On the non-development expenditure side, he said, Rs 1,214.48 million had been allocated for the salary of government employees. As compared with the previous year, it had been increased by 8 per cent.

He said the non-salary budget for the year 2007-2008 was Rs120.71 million, of which Rs10 million had been allocated for repairing roads, Rs31.95 million for expenditure on electricity, Rs26.89 million for carrying out work on educational institutions, Rs9.82 million for purchasing furniture and Rs2.14 million for the health sector.