SWABI: District nazim Zahid Khan presented Rs8.72 billion budget in the district council for the fiscal year 2019-20 here on Monday.

Asar Khan, convener of the council, presided over the budget session. Both treasury and opposition members attended their last budget session as their constitutional tenure ends in August.

It was observed that for the first time the opposition members belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf remained silent during the budget presentation.

Awami National Party had formed the district government with cooperation of Jamait Ulema-i-Islam-F and various other political parties after the last local government elections held on May 30, 2015.

Nazim Mr Zahid said that Rs7. 31 billion was non-development budget, and major chunk of it would be spent on payment of salaries and pensions of the public sector employees of different departments, including education.

“Only for district education department we have allocated Rs931.8 million and Rs1.7 billion for the health department,” he said. Similarly he explained the allocation of budget for various other public departments.

In the budget, Rs683 million have been allocated for development works, he said, adding his team was committed to the development of the district, which has remained backward and lacked amenities.

“We have equal budgetary allocation for all members of the council, whether they belong to treasury or opposition,” he said.

However, he stressed that the members on the council had to ensure that these funds were spent on the schemes aimed at welfare of the people who voted them into power.

The nazim thanked the council members for hearing the budget speech with attention. “During our government we have worked for creating an environment of cooperation and coordination,” he said.

When contacted, Azizullah Khan, the opposition leader belonging to PTI, told this correspondent that they had not yet fully studied the budget copy and that a strategy would be adopted on how to go about during the budget session.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2019