LAHORE, June 13: The city government has decided to forward an anti-devolution reference to the Local Government and Rural Development Department proposing centralization of the recovery of local government taxes at district level.

The CDG will propose recovery of all local government taxes through a singe agency and distribution of the proceeds among the district, town und union councils in accordance with a prescribed formula. Contracts for the recovery of various local government taxes would be awarded by a committee comprising representatives of the district, town and union councils.

The decision to send the reference proposing centralization of the recovery of local government taxes at the district level was taken unanimously at a meeting of the district advisory board here on Thursday. District Nazim Amer Mahmood presided over the meeting. Town Nazims Khwaja Ahmad Hassaan, Aftab Asghar Dar, Ashiq Dayal, Maj Rafiq Hasrat (retired), Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf and Sardar Adil Omar and five union council Nazims attended the meeting.

The district Nazim informed the committee that residents of the border area villages had been exempted from payment of district council taxes in view of the tension with India. The union councils, too, had the power to waive their taxes. He directed the executive district officer (Revenue) to contact the Lahore Electric Supply Company chief executive to seek waiver of surcharge on electricity bills for the border areas residents.

The advisory board also decided to enforce uniform building regulations in the district and asked the town administrations to submit their recommendations in this regard within two weeks.

The district Nazim, who was also elected the District Sports Board chairman in the meeting, said a Rs3 million Sports Fund had been created for the promotion of sports and encouragement of sportsmen. He directed that a sports events calendar should be formulated and hockey, cricket, football, tug-of-war, volleyball, athletics, kabaddi and wresting tournaments should be organized from Sept 6 to 15. A prominent woman and a sportsman would be appointed vice-chairpersons of the board.