RAWALPINDI: Rawal and Potohar town municipal administrations on Wednesday unveiled their annual budget for 2015-16.

On the contrary, the City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) and Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) failed to announce their annual budget on the first day of new fiscal year.

Potohar Town Municipal Administration (PTMA) approved Rs690 million budget with Rs460 million for development schemes.

Town Officer Finance Shahzad Gondal presented the budget to the Potohar Town administrator Arif Rahim for approval.

The PTMA will generate Rs400 million with opening balance standing at Rs290 million.

Property tax worth Rs120 million will be a major source of income of the town while Rs185 million will come from its share in tax on immoveable property (TIP) and Rs100 million from Punjab Finance Commission (PFC) share.

For non-development expenditures, the town allocated Rs190 million for salaries and Rs59.1 million for utility services and other expenditures.

For development of the Potohar Town, Rs300 million has been allocated for new schemes and Rs130 million for ongoing uplift schemes of last fiscal 2014-15. It also allocated Rs16 million for youth development projects in the town area.

On the other hand, Rawal Town Municipal Administration (RTMA) has prepared Rs1.17 billion budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 with Rs700 billion for development projects.

Rawal Town Administrator Imran Qureshi said the budget was prepared but final approval would be given on July 2.

For the first time, the development budget swelled to Rs700 billion as the RTMA had not spent its development budget in 2014-15 due to the metro bus project.

Besides, Rs370 million had been allocated for salaries and other expenditures including utility bills and fuel charges.

The RTMA will generate revenue through rents of markets, contracts of parking places and property transfer fee, they said.

The income generated through these sources could meet only the non-development expenditures and for the development work RTMA requires grants from the Punjab province.

“The RTMA allocated Rs300 million for the new development schemes, Rs400 million for ongoing schemes, Rs39 million had been spent for the refurbishment of new office building of the civic body at Liaquat Bagh,” the administrator said.

Meanwhile, the CDGR is still waiting for the response of the Punjab government for its share in PFC award and after this, the budget preparation process will be started.

“The local government system is being introduced and the annual budget for the district will be for three months and the elected representatives of District Council and Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation will make its budget after the election in September,” said a senior official of the CDGR.

For the RDA, the budget has not been prepared as all officials are still busy in Metro Bus Project and left the work pending. Under the law, the RDA had to announce the budget before the start of the fiscal year but it did not start the work in this regard.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

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