LAHORE, July 29: The Punjab government has held in abeyance the budget proceedings of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town Council meeting.

Town naib nazim Imtiaz Ahmed Awan had presided over the council meeting, attended by 14 male and five female members of the local body, which had approved the financial plan for the 2008-09 fiscal.

An order issued by a Local Government and Community Development Department official late on Tuesday night read: “I am directed to refer to the subject complaint received by the government, which allege that due process of notice etc., has not been followed for the subject budget session and there is likelihood of serious procedural violation.

“In view of the financial implications of the matter it has accordingly been desired by the competent authority that the subject budget session may not be conducted today i.e., July 29, 2008, and the same should be conducted after due process of notice etc., as envisaged under the rules/law”.

Earlier, the Rs463 million tax-free surplus budget was approved for the town.

The meeting began 40 minutes behind its schedule with recitation from the Holy Quran and a Naat at the Hajveri Hall. Opposition leader Rao Javed Iqbal of the Jamaat-i-Islami and PML-N’s Manzoor Gujjar, Iqbal Gujjar and Ilyas Butt were among those who did not attend the 26-member local body’s budget meeting.

Soon after, Ayaz Bobi rose and said that the council meeting was illegal as intimation regarding its convening had been delivered to them at 7.17pm on Monday, though it had been dated July 26.

Under the local government rules, he maintained, all members should have been conveyed the meeting’s agenda at least 72 hours before its scheduled time.

“Some of our members were out of city and it was not possible for them to reach Lahore on such a short notice. The council meeting should be postponed for a day or so,” maintained Boby while the treasury members started thumping desks and Awan asked Town Nazim Tariq Sana Bajwa to present the financial plan for the next fiscal.

Bajwa continued reading his budget speech while Bobi requested the naib nazim to postpone the meeting and treasury members thumped desks on every pause town nazim took or raised slogans in his favour.

During the last four years, Bajwa said, the town had spent Rs550 million or so on various development schemes in the town that were completed in consultation with the council members from its own resources and without any special grant from the government.

Removal of encroachments and widening of roads had been top priority of the town during the last financial year. Twenty-five roads were constructed while four development projects were completed under the Citizens’ Community Boards.

Claiming that the town was the trendsetter in Lahore to install sodium lights in streets, he said that over Rs28 million would be spent to fix streetlights in the town during the next fiscal. “Some 1,246 new sodium, 73 mercury and 1,730 tubelights would be installed,” he added.

The total income of the town would be Rs463 million while the expenditure had been estimated at Rs440 million, showing a surplus of Rs23 million. The development expenditure had been estimated at Rs373 million while the non-development expenditure would be Rs67.89million. A sum of Rs125 million had been allocated for the annual development plan. Tenders had been called for the installation of filtration plants at every union council to provide potable water to 1.5 million people while the Rs1,000 monthly honorarium for the women members would be increased to Rs7,000, Bajwa added. Except for Ayaz Bobi, every member of the town council voted for the budget.