August 31, 2008	Sunday	Sha'aban 28, 1429

MIRPURKHAS, Aug 30: Over 500 new and ongoing development schemes have been stopped due to non-release of funds by the district government despite passing of budget about two months ago.

Reports said that due to an ongoing tug of war between the zila nazim and the DCO on allocation of funds in different heads of the budget approved by the zila council, the schemes were stopped.

The DCO had opposed the budget saying that it was not prepared according to the directives of the Sindh government. He only issued salary component of the budget in the first phase and later released the non-salary component of the budget after demands of EDOs of different departments for running the affairs of their departments.

The zila nazim, Dr Sughra Junejo, told journalists that she had tried to curtail unnecessary allocations in the budget of some heads of government departments and tried to transfer these funds to ADP schemes as per the directives of the government and accused the DCO of deliberately delaying the issuance of development funds as a result of which work on all development schemes had been stopped.

On the other hand, DCO Abdul Rahim Soomro claimed that there were some mistakes in the budget and as he was working under the Sindh government, he would not issue development funds without the permission of the chief secretary.

Meanwhile, despite passing of the district government budget two months ago, work on about 500 new and ongoing development schemes has been stopped which has deprived hundreds of workers of their livelihood and they are in financial crisis.

Heads of different government departments, including works and services, health, education and revenue, have urged the DCO to immediately release the development budget so that they could start work on the development schemes.

The EDO works and services, Ghulam Mustafa Abro, said that hundreds of schemes of his department were stopped due to non-release of funds and the contractors were also worried about the completion of schemes.