December 05, 2008	Friday	Zilhaj 6, 1429

HYDERABAD, Dec 4: The district council on Thursday passed resolutions, proposing considerable raise in the honourarium of taluka council members.

The resolutions earlier adopted by the taluka councils of city and Latifabad called for raise in taluka nazim’s honorarium to Rs20,000 from Rs15,000, taluka naib nazim’s to Rs10,000 from Rs5,000.

It proposed raise in monthly honorarium of union council naib nazims to Rs5,000 from Rs2,000 and of members of taluka councils to Rs2,000 from Rs1,000 a month.

Ms Zahida Memon objected that the approval of re-appropriation of funds had been reported in the media but no such approval had been given and the chair told her that re-appropriation had been approved by the house in Wednesday’s session.

Mehboob Abro of Awam Dost Panel argued that raise demanded by UC nazims in their resolution should be given and reasons should be disclosed why it had been delayed.

He said that when the district nazim was empowered to raise the honourarium why he was not doing so. He was supported by Sajida Baloch who claimed that when a resolution was not returned in two months period it was deemed to have been approved.

Dr Arif Razmi said on behalf of district nazim that the raise in honourarium was delayed due to objections raised by local government department. But ADP’s Yamin Soomro was not dissatisfied and said the correspondence between district and provincial governments should be placed before the house.

Mr Zahida Memon’s resolution, calling for renaming Deh Bhaieeynpur Raiti, supposed to be birthplace of Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, after the great poet, was adopted by the house although Rauf Jafri and Mehboob Abro said that it would have been better if a historian had confirmed that the area was in fact Bhittai’s birthplace to avoid any clarification in future.

She said that the deh should then be written and spoken as Deh Bhaieeynpur Bhittai.

Babu Ilyas put forward a resolution, demanding that Hyderabad airport be named after Khursheed Begum, mother of Altaf Hussain, because his nominated district nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil had made efforts to get the airport operational once again after a decade.

Abro proposed that the name of late Z.A. Bhutto should also be proposed with the name of Altaf Hussain’s mother and said that it should then be left to the federal government to decide on the final name.

He said that Privatisation Minister Naveed Qamar and present PPP government deserved credit for reopening the airport. He was supported by Yamin Soomro but he also gave credit to district nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil for his efforts in taking up the issue of airport with the outgoing government.

Convenor Rajput said that the resolution should be adopted as it would not proper to propose two names for a place. The resolution was accordingly adopted.