LAHORE, July 13: The City District Government of Lahore approved on Saturday Rs23.06 billion annual budget for the fiscal year 2013-14.

The Rs23.06 billion budget includes Rs16.22 billion which will be transferred by the Punjab government to the CDGL under the provincial finance commission (PFC) award, CDGL EDO (Finance) Suleman Ghani informed participants in a budget meeting presided over by Administrator/DCO Nasim Sadiq here at Town Hall.

Mr Ghani said the CDGL would approximately spend Rs22.40 billion during the fiscal year 2013-14. “The CDGL expects recovery of Rs1.39 billion from various resources”, he said.

The EDO (Finance) said that Rs3.25 billion had been earmarked for development schemes while 44 per cent of the total budget would be spent on education, eight per cent on health and 18 per cent on cleanliness arrangements. After a briefing on the budget the participants discussed the budget and finally approved it.

The DCO said the CDGL would focus on education, health and repair/construction of roads during the fiscal year 2013-14.

ANTI-DENGUE DRIVE: The CDGL has urged the towns’ teams led by entomologists to supervise and carry out anti-dengue drive in all nine towns of the city in view of the on-going rainy season.

“The surveillance of dengue larvae must be conducted in sensitive union councils and there should be no negligence on the part of anyone,” the Lahore DCO directed officials in a meeting held here on Saturday.

He asked the officials to get FIRs registered against those violating the dengue regulations and precautionary measures.

REPORT SOUGHT: Provincial Minister for Forests, Wildlife and Fisheries Malik Muhammad Asif directed on Saturday all divisional forest officers (DFOs) of the province to submit a detailed report within three days regarding government forests’ land illegally occupied by grabbers.

He issued these instructions in a letter issued to the Provincial Secretary Forests and other officials concerned.

He said since senior officials had been directed to retrieve the illegally occupied land, district and divisional forests’ officials must send reports timely in this regard. — Staff Reporter