HARIPUR, July 21: The Haripur district council approved on Wednesday a Rs952.067 million budget for the fiscal year 2004-05. District Nazim Dr Amer Zaman had presented the budget in which Rs124.11 million had been earmarked for development projects.

Nazim of the Union Council Kotehra Ghazi, Qamar Zaman, objected to the revised budget for 2003-04 and accused the district government of excessive spending on festivals like Jashn-i-Hazara and Jashn-i-Khari Gandgar, and claimed that the council had approved only one million rupees for the two events but the district government had spent Rs3 million on them.

Councillors, including Riaz Khan, Salim Khan and Saeed Abbasi, supported Mr Zaman and sought details of expenditures incurred on the purchase of furniture, vehicles and expenses on the visits of members and POL payments.

Sahibzada Hamid Shah and Nasar Iqbal demanded a raise in the grant-in-aid to the TMA Ghazi and allocations for the maintenance of vehicles and other miscellaneous expenditures.

They also suggested a cut in non-development allocations, saying that more funds should be set aside for water supply schemes for Ghazi tehsil and other water-deficient areas of the district.

District Nazim Dr Raja Amer Zaman said the amount spent on the Gandgar and Hazara festivals were utilized in a transparent manner. Later, the convener sought approval of both revised and next year's budget from the house.

After the session some councillors at a news conference termed the passage of the budget unconstitutional. The councillors, including Salim Khan, Aslam Khan Bagra, Saeed Abbasi and Riaz Khan, said the budget would only benefit the nazim's supporters.

About the budget outlay, they said the district government could generate only Rs1.5 million on its own, while it had to pay Rs2.3 million to the employees of devolved departments. They accused the district nazim of presenting inflated figures of income and development.