HYDERABAD, July 4: A number of questions remained unanswered in budget 2003-4 of the district government even after its approval by the District Council on Thursday as the non-development expenditure has further been increased by Rs6 million.

It was not brought on record in the council’s session as to where the additional amount of Rs6 million will come from.

It was reliably learnt that in the meeting between the district Nazim and some council members, having complete knowledge of the budget’s provisions, an amount of Rs40 million was proposed to be deducted but only Rs7.2 million has been deducted, mostly from Education works. The overall non-development expenditure of education is Rs2.17 billion.

A district council member, who was associated with the team that held discussions over budget figures, said on Friday that an amount of Rs16.20 million was withdrawn from different sub-heads that has now been re-adjusted under new heads, presented in the council yesterday.

Requesting anonymity, he said that the major deduction was to be made in the funds of the district Nazim, Naib Nazim, and the district coordination officer as in all these heads a huge amount was allocated as secret services/discretionary funds and unforeseen expenditures. “The volume of the budget has increased following allocation of unexplained increase of Rs6.4 million in non-development head. Previously, non-development expenditure was Rs3.90 billion.”

Some important documents including statements of receipts, expenditure and development were not presented to the members despite the fact that the budget stood approved.

Quoting article 63(6) of budget rules 2002, he pointed out that no budget could be passed by the council unless the expenditure and receipts tallied with each other.

He claimed that in the present budget both these figures do not tally, and added that the statement of receipts included grants to be received from the provincial government which formed the basis of the budget for the fiscal year.

It is claimed that the EDO, Finance and Planning, did not submit the statement of expenditure in the council that may provide information about new schemes to be executed in the on-going year.

He said that since development schemes were not called from union councils, how could they be included in the statement of expenditure.

Answering a question as to would the budget be sent to the Sindh government for approval, he denied it saying that the government had already given the district government the total amount of budget, including development and non-development expenditure, so there was no question of it being sent for approval.

Another member, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that a draft budget should have been presented in the session in May after calling development schemes from union councils in April and then approval of the budget should have been sought in June.

He termed the salient features presented in the session on members’ demand “a black spot in the name of salient features”, which negated the ethics of the budget document.

He said that only Rs135 million are kept in block allocations for which new schemes are yet to be identified. “This amount is open to deduction by the Sindh government. If at least six to seven per cent deduction is made, then there will be drastic cut in the amount.”

The district Nazim told this correspondent on Thursday after approval of the budget, “I will fight with the government if this amount is badly cut.”

He said that he would also fight for the Rs151 million of the ADP 2002-3 which had lapsed this year.

He clarified that it was not a deficit budget.