SWABI, Oct 29: The tehsil council of Swabi on Monday passed a total budget of Rs 46,279,531 for year 2001-2002.

The opposition councillors staged walkout from the house against the government failure to construct offices for the minorities and female representatives.

Speaking at the budget session, Swabi tehsil Nazim Masood Jabbar said that 71.36 per cent of the total budget had been allocated for non-development works, while 28.74 for development works.

He said that Rs 19,212,865 had been allocated for the salaries of tehsil council employees, Rs 92,81736 for annual development programme, Rs 1,186,760 for repair and Rs 14,000,000 for construction of offices. He said that all-out efforts would be made to solve the people’s problems.

He said, “we wanted to increase the income sources and for achieving this, a slight burden will be put on the masses. The building tax imposition would be extended to the rural areas, professional tax would be levied, steps and measures are underway to impose property tax.”

The opposition councillors walked out from the budget session of the tehsil council soon after the session started.

Later, Mustafa Advocate, Iqbal Ahmad and Shaukat Ayaz brought them back to the house. The tehsil Nazim told the opposition members that the government had already allocated Rs1,400,000 for the construction of offices and there was no need to stage a walkout.