KOHAT, June 25: Release of five per cent royalty to the local government from oil and gas reserves would make the Kohat district self-reliant and enable it to develop underdeveloped areas.

This was said by District Nazim Kohat Gohar Saifullah Khan in his budget speech on Monday.

He regretted that problems of water shortage, communication, education and health facilities could not be solved in remote areas despite discovering huge reserves of oil and gas there.

He said that half of the royalty released to the district would be spent on development of such remote areas.

He recalled that last year the provincial government had received Rs1.5 billion as royalty on oil and gas reserves located in Kohat and Karak districts.

The nazim presented the Rs99.069 million tax free annual budget for the fiscal year 2007-08 in the council for debate, which was in addition to the special grant of Rs120 million announced by Chief Minister Mohammad Akram Durrani.

Mr Khan highlighted salient features of the developmental expenditure that would be spent on health, agriculture, sports, civil defence, community council boards and drinking water schemes.

He said that two per cent of the budget would be spent on sports, one per cent on civil defence, Rs10.5 million on drinking water schemes, Rs10 million on repair of city roads, Rs60 million on health and agriculture and 25 per cent on community council boards.

He informed the house that every nazim of the 32 union councils would be given Rs13.367 million to carry out development work in their constituencies whereas Rs100,000 each would be provided to councillors representing minorities.

The special grant would be spent on the replacement of old pipelines in Kohat city, construction of the Nizampur-Nowshera road, fire-brigade vehicles and a library.

The nazim said that even though the district was totally dependent on grants from the provincial and federal governments, no taxes had been imposed.