June 28, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 23, 1429

TANDO ALLAHYAR, June 27: The Tando Allahyar district council passed budgetary estimates for 2008-09 with a surplus of Rs303,046 here on Friday.

The session was held in the council, located in district nazim’s secretariat, under strict security arrangements. Rangers and police personnel escorted the district nazim to her secretariat where police remained deployed on rooftops.

According to convenor, 17 voted for budget while seven ADP members opposed it.

Budget document puts income of the district at Rs1148.209 million against expenditure of Rs1147.905 million. The district got a one line budget of Rs802.468 million besides funds under the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses, Sindh Devolved Social Services Programme (SDSSP), sugarcane cess, Octroi and Zila Tax, taxes/rent and fees.

The development side (ADP) has an allocation of Rs214.936 million under public sector development programme (2008-09) which included Rs57.275 million for physical planning and housing, Rs1.600 million for agriculture, Rs34.671 million for transport and communication, Rs50.129 million for education, Rs18.685 million for health, Rs8.284 million for social welfare and Rs33.316 million for citizen community boards. A block allocation of Rs10.976 million is also made. The non-development expenditures (salary/non-salary) are Rs746.511 million, bringing total volume of the two components to Rs961.447 million.

The district nazim said that an amount of Rs426 million of road sector schemes of which is the district’s share under president’s package has not been released to it so far. She said that under president’s package gas has been provided to 35 villages at a cost of Rs172.7 million and new road schemes at a cost of Rs53 million are being executed.

After presentation of budget, the district nazim immediately left for Hyderabad. It was learnt that law enforcers resorted to aerial firing at Keerio distributary when some people tried to stage a sit-in to block district nazim’s way. Witnesses said that law enforcers resorted to baton charge to disperse them. No one was injured.

ADP MEMBERS: ADP members Asif Khawaja, Mir Aslam Talpur and Nabi Bux Lund while speaking to journalists termed budget session illegal and said that the actual council officer was not present in the session. “Its an illegal and unlawful session. We were informed about session at 9pm on Thursday night”, they said.

Nazim: The district nazim has accused the Sindh government of paralysing her administration and said that an amount of Rs800 million of on-going fiscal year has lapsed.

She was speaking to journalists in her office after presenting budget.

She alleged that local PPP leaders had assured PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari that they would oust her from the district but they failed as majority was still with her. She said that even this year’s single line transfer was less than the previous year.