PESHAWAR, July 25: The District Council of Malakand approved Rs 530 million surplus budget for the year 2002-2003 in its session on Thursday. No new tax has been levied in the budget.

The development and non-development income of the district in the budget have been shown at Rs 440 million and Rs 60 million, respectively.

The session began with the speaker of the Council, Syed Ahmad Ali Shah Bacha, in the chair. The debate on the budget lasted for many hours. The debate covered all aspects of the budget and members presented their views.

The members through different cut motions compared the last year’s performance and the new allocations for different sectors.

Majority of the members objected to increased allocations in the development as well as non-development grants so far sanctioned for different departments and proposed that priority should be given to the public welfare schemes.

It was stressed that more funds should be granted to the public health engineering sector enabling it to provide clean drinking water to the people.

The house also debated women councilors issues and sanctioned a sum of Rs 100,000 for provision of session allowance to them and decided that more funds would be provided to them at a later stage enabling them to carry out their work easily. It was also stated that in the current fiscal year more allocations would be made to the welfare schemes for women and minorities.

The convener while reserving his ruling on the objections of the members, recommended certain alterations in the grants so for being given to the district departments and diverted that amount to the people welfare side. It was also decided that the grants given under the devolution head would be diverted to public health sector.

The members emphasised on the provision of basic facilities to the people like drinking water, medical care, communication facilities, provision of facilities in schools, etc. Some grant was also proposed for the construction of Council building.

The District Nazim, Engineer Mohammad Hamayun Khan, assured the Council that this year they will have to work more and in the light of the last year’s experiences, efforts should be continued.  

He expressed the hope that when the people’s representatives continued their efforts, Malakand would be converted into a developed zone. The house later unanimously approved the budget.