HYDERABAD, June 11: Over 100 Nazims, Naib Nazims and councillors of various union councils of the district held a protest demonstration and observed a hunger strike outside the press club here on Wednesday.

They were protesting against the inordinate delay in the release of Annual Development Programme funds, amounting to over Rs200 million.

The protesters told journalists that tenders for development schemes had been issued but work orders had been withheld for want of funds.

District Nazim Dr Makhdoom Rafiquzzaman and Naib Nazim Nawab Rashid Ali Khan also visited the hunger strike camp and tried to persuade the elected representatives to call off their protest but they refused. The district Nazim offered to constitute an eight-member committee to hold talks with the authorities concerned for the release of ADP funds but the protesters asked him and the Naib Nazim to personally approach the Sindh government in this regard.

Members of the district council said they would not attend any session of the council till the funds were released. They said bureaucrats were trying to fail the new system.

The protesters adopted a resolution, calling upon the Sindh government to release ADP funds for 59 development schemes for which tenders had been issued.

They said the Sindh government had already released funds for other districts.

Q. Hakim, Rana Mehmood Ali Khan, Ali Nawaz Kutriyo, Tanvir Siddiqui, Rauf Jafri, Dr Ayaz Arain, Abdul Majeed Wahidi, Yousuf Siddiqui, Yousuf Qureshi, Ramzan Arain, Parveen Lodhi and Munawar Begum were among the protesters.