PESHAWAR, March 7: Peshawar District Council on Tuesday passed a budget of Rs6.71 billion for the financial year 2005-06 after three days of debate. The opposition members have rejected the budget and said they would start a movement against it.

The meeting of the district council was presided over Raza Ullah Khan.

Taking part in the debate, Malik Noor Rehman demanded increase in the monthly remuneration of councillors, mentioned as Rs2000 in the budget for each councillor. He also demanded an allowance of Rs500 for each session of the council.

He said that the amount earmarked for forming monitoring committees and for providing vehicles for their visits to various areas should also be increased. He announced a conditional support for the budget.

According to Section 12, sub-section 8 of the Local Government Ordinance, the district government would sign the budget document after its adoption in the district council.

The district council member Nazir Baghi said the district nazim had ignored councillors in development projects and accused him of lurking threats about stopping funds, which had divided the house into two groups.

Gohar Ali said that bureaucracy had ignored the masses. He said that development of rural areas and agriculture were also neglected in the budget. He demanded increase in emergency funds for flood-hit areas.

Lady councillor Zainab Bibi said there was no need for allocating Rs20 million for Burn Hospital, as funds were allocated earlier were enough for the project.

She said that the allocated amount should be included in the ADP of nazims.

She said that the district government should not allocate funds the departments for which the provincial government had already made allocation.

Councillor Shams-ul-Bari said that the budget should be approved without wasting time so that work on development schemes could be started.

Khalid Gul said that the previous government had allocated Rs80 million for the district council, while the present government Had increased it to Rs130 million.

He said that the allocated amount for the district council should be reduced and included in the DP.

He said that like the provincial government the district government should also adopt Urdu for office correspondence and budget.

NAZIM: Peshawar district nazim Haji Ghulam Ali has said that the provincial government would hand over various departments to the district government in July, which would further strengthen the local government system.