PESHAWAR: Nazim Mohammad Asim Khan on Wednesday presented Peshawar city district government’s Rs10.66 billion budget for financial year 2016-17.

The budget’s outlay is Rs2.24 billion more than that of last year’s Rs8.42 billion revised budget, showed the documents.

A major chunk of the budgetary allocations i.e. Rs8.566 billion will go to the salary and non-salary expenditure for 20 devolved departments.

Of the Rs988.53 million development funds, Rs189.14 million will be on the discretion of nazim and Rs80 million on naib nazim’s.

In the previous financial year, Rs816.24 million was allocated for development schemes but later the amount was slashed to Rs408.12 million after the provincial government refused to offer more money for facing financial crisis.

Major chunk allocated for non-development expenditure

According to the budget documents, Rs8.566 billion is allocated for salaries and non-salary expenditure for 20 devolved departments.

Rs197.71 million will be used in education sector to provide missing facilities to schools and colleges like construction of boundary walls and lavatories, electrification, supply of clean drinking water, purchase of furniture, and hiring of teachers.

The health sector has gotten Rs98.85 million, which is 10 per cent of the total development funds.

Of the amount, Rs40 million will be used on the installation of solar panels in health units and Rs30 million on the establishment of walk-in clinics on need basis.

Only Rs15 million has been allocated for development schemes in agriculture, women development and youth and sports sectors.

During the budget session at the district council hall here, nazim Asim Khan, who presented the second annual budget for the district after the installation of the local government system in the province, said Rs40 million would be used on solar panels at rural health centres to provide them with uninterrupted electricity.

“Initially, we are providing funds for solar panels at RHCs. They will gradually be extended to the basic health units,” he said.

The nazim said Rs10 million had been allocated to preserve land records.

He said funds would be provided by the USAID to computerise all such records as the people had been facing many problems to secure their respective land records.

The nazim said Rs30 million had been earmarked in the budget for improving sanitation system in rural areas of Peshawar as Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar was for urban areas only.

The opposition councillors wore black armbands as a protest against non-consultation in the budget-making process.

Opposition leader in the council Syed Zahir Advocate said it was unfortunate that no opposition member had been consulted by the district government during the budget’s formulation.

“We have been completely ignored,” he said, adding that all decisions had been made about the budget unilaterally by the district government.

He also complained about the ‘discriminatory attitude’ of the city district government towards the opposition and said tough time would be given to the nazim during the passage of the budget.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2016