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FAISALABAD, March 9: Hundreds of motorcycle-rickshaw drivers took out a rally and staged demonstration outside the offices of the city district nazim against police and administration’s atrocities here on Thursday.
The protesters marched through various city roads and blocked traffic on the GTS Intersection, Jhal Khanunana Chowk and staged a sit-in. They chanted slogans against the traffic police and officials of the Regional Transport Authority.
They claimed that they were being forced not to ply their vehicles on city roads by the police and other functionaries just to provide an opportunity to the metro bus owners to gain maximum financial benefits.
They said they had completed all legal formalities and not violating the government instructions but they were being harassed. They threatened to block traffic on city roads if they were not allowed by the police and the RTA officials to continue their business.
LYALLPUR TOWN: The Lyallpur Town Municipal Administration has approved a budget of Rs265.1 million till June 2006 allocating Rs140 million for development.
Presenting the budget here on Thursday, Town Nazim Rana Zahid Mehmood told the house that a sum of Rs700,000 had been allocated for each member for uplift schemes while 20 per cent non-developmental expenditure would be reduced during this period.
He said not even a single new tax had been imposed on citizens and the town administration would launch a vigorous campaign against its chronic defaulters for the recovery of huge amounts pending against them for the last so many decades.
He claimed that not a single penny had been earmarked for offices of town nazim and naib nazim and they would bear expenses on their own.
The nazim said Rs22.1 million had been set aside for purchase of machinery and vehicles for the garden, engineering and sanitation departments of the town. For the first time in the city’s history, streetlights would be purchased from a renowned firm with four-year replacement and repair guarantee. Mr Mehmood said Rs2 million had been allocated for patchwork of city roads and Rs8.5 million for the ongoing uplift projects.
Zahid Mehmood said new vehicles for town employees would be purchased with an amount of Rs3.5 million while Rs26.4 million would be spent on upgradation and modernisation of parks and greenbelts. He said Rs35 million had been allocated for Citizen Community Boards projects and Rs5.3 million would be spent on payment of electricity bills of streetlights.
