GUJRAT: The union council chairmen belonging to mainstream opposition parties PML-Q and PTI have now decided to wage a legal battle against non-issuance of Rs2.5 million funds against the uplift schemes proposed by them for their respective constituencies.

The chairmen held a joint [protest] meeting in Kulewal Syedan with opposition leader in Gujrat district council Ghulam Rasool Shariq in the chair.

The participants lodged a strong protest against the Gujrat district council chairman and devised a strategy to counter the treasury’s ‘policy of ignoring the schemes proposed by the opposition-backed chairmen and accommodating the projects proposed by the losing candidates belonging to the ruling PML-N in their respective UCs.’

The Punjab government has released a sum of Rs2.5m for uplift schemes in each rural UC across the province; however, the opposition chairmen are not being accommodated in terms of execution of the schemes proposed by them against these funds.

Mr Shariq announced after the meeting that it had been decided to challenge the policy of ignoring the opposition-backed UC chairmen regarding the local government package in the court after tenders for awarding the contracts under the development package had been advertised in newspapers and opposition’s schemes had not been part of the tenders which was a sheer violation of the commitment made to them by the authorities concerned last week.

He said data on uplift schemes proposed by the opposition had been collected which would be presented in court as evidence to get stay order against the execution of the schemes advertised in the tender notices.

Earlier a week ago, scores of opposition-backed UC chairmen had held a meeting with Gujrat Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa and Gujrat District Council Chairman Tanveer Kotla where they had lodged a strong protest against being ignored in terms of uplift schemes; however, they were asked to again submit their schemes out of which a few could be accommodated.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the [recent] meeting of the opposition-backed UC chairmen and decision to challenge the policy of ignoring their schemes in the court, could dent the treasury’s attempt to initiate uplift projects in rural UCs.

He said it had been a practice in local bodies that only the uplift schemes proposed by the treasury members would normally get accommodated across the country but here in Gujrat the opposition members had been creating hurdles in the development of their own areas since the funds were being spent on all rural UCs simultaneously.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2017