HARIPUR, May 31: Owing to some ambiguities and anomalies felt by some members of the Tehsil Council, could not pass the revised budget of Rs 58.02 million and  deferred it to Monday next for thorough debate here on Thursday.

The council met here with  Amin Khan, Naib Nazim, in the chair.

Annual revised budget of the TMA was the first item on the agenda but when some members objected on late delivery of budget copies and raised a number of questions pertaining to upward revision in non-development expenditure and cutting down of development expenses the house witnessed a pandemonium.

Taking part in the debate councillor Raja Ehtesham  sought the explanation from the chair  regarding development expenditure, adding that though the TMA mentioned these expenses at Rs 17.794 million, the members were given Rs 14.30 million under this head, leaving no explanation about the remaining amount of Rs 3.5 million. This point was also raised by some other members.

Abdul Haleem of UC South objected on the downward revision of development expenditure, saying that in the revised copy it was shown at Rs 17.794 million while it was Rs 20.5 million in the budget passed by the house. He sought the reasons for such a change in the expenditure.

On this the convener deferred the matter to Monday for taking up the budget for complete discussion. Some of the members from the opposition also criticized the allocations for sports and education scholarship and termed the process as non-transparent. On this the Tehsil Nazim Iftikhar Ashraf Khan announced that he would resign as chairman of the sports committee.

The house also decided to declare all the earlier allocations of Rs 600,000 from the education scholarship and sports heads null and void and agreed to investigate the earlier decision endorsing the convener’s suggestion of deciding such matters in a joint meeting of educations, sports and finance committees.

Abida Perveen and Prof Mohammad Din demanded cancellation of proposed tax on private educational institutes. Abdul Saboor Qureshi, Abid sheikh, Raja Ehtesham and Mrs Gul Ambreen questioned spending in the head of AM & R and demanded changes as per rules.

Later the Tehsil Nazim tried to explain the points raised by members pertaining to increase in the non-development budget but he was debarred by the chair as the matter was deferred till Monday next.

However, he assured the house of maintaining transparency and honesty in allocating and spending nation’s wealth. He said each and everything was on record and even Rs10 would not be allowed to be wasted or bungled.