PESHAWAR: The Peshawar district council on Friday passed the Rs10 billion budget for financial year 2017-18 and gave nazim the discretion to utilise two-thirds of the development and non-development funds for the girls’ education in the district.

The budget was passed unanimously when the chair, naib nazim Syed Qasim Ali Shah, put it to vote at the city’s council hall.

With a majority vote, the council also adopted two cut motions about the transfer of the girls’ education funds and placing of garbage receptacles in the provincial capital.

District council also passes Rs10bn budget for 2017-18

The first motion tabled by Arshad Shinwari of the PTI demanded that the nazim be allowed to decide about the utilisation of 75 per cent of the development and non-development funds allocated for the girls’ female education in the district.

Earlier, the district education officer (female) had the discretion to use these funds.

The development comes after the failure of the DEO (female) to produce the details of the use of non-development budget in the meetings of the district education committee despite repeated requests.

In the budget, around Rs60 million has been allocated for different girls education schemes.

Now after the cut motion’s approval, the nazim will utilise two-thirds of these funds.

The second cut motion tabled by PTI’s Dr Inam Khan was about the Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar scheme meant for placing garbage receptacles in Peshawar at the cost of Rs30 million.

The approval of the cut motion led to the shifting of those funds to the development schemes of councillors under the district annual development programme.

Nazim Mohammad Asim Khan had presented the budget on Wednesday with reduction of Rs126.42 million in the city’s development expenditure.

According to the budget documents, of the total budget, Rs8.09 billion has been doled out for the payment of salary to employees of the devolved departments working under the city district government, while Rs0.44 billion is non-salary budget.

The district government has allocated Rs686.93 million for the district’s annual development programme, which is around Rs126.42 million less than the last year’s development outlay.

The development budget for 2016-17 was Rs813.35 million.

The receipt estimates showed that the district government would receive Rs9.22 billion from the provincial government as a share in the Provincial Finance Commission Award.

The provincial government will also give Rs167 million as grant to the district government, which also hopes to generate Rs618 million from own resources.

Earlier, participating in the budget speech, Khalid Waqas of the Jamaat-i-Islami said the local government system was fast developing but the PTI government had lost interest in it and thus, threatening it.

He urged both the treasury and opposition to form a jirga to meet Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for demand a handsome development package for Peshawar.

The councillor said Peshawar was ruined by militancy over the last one decade but the successive governments ignored its development.

“Peshawar is the main battleground of militancy seeing more bomb blasts than any other city of the world,” he said.

Councillors Talha Mohammad, Gul Afzal, Zahira, Sarwar Din, Hazrat Gul, Safdar Baghi and Sheikh Karim Jan also participated in the budget debate.

Also, nazim Mohammad Asim Khan said Rs686.93 million had been allocated for Peshawar’s development schemes though they didn’t match the numerous issues and problems facing the district.

“Peshawar has many problems but unfortunately, limited resources are available to address them,” he said.

The nazim urged councillors to ensure the utilisation of their respective funds efficiently and fight corruption for people’s welfare.

He said the chief minister had promised him a development package for Peshawar.

The chair later prorogued the session.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2017