ABBOTTABAD, July 25: The Abbottabad district council budget was passed in the absence of opposition, and 43 members in the 82-member house attended the meeting, including the district Nazim and Naib Nazim.

District Nazim Mustafa Jadoon had presented the Rs340 million budget for fiscal 2002-2003 on July 18 which the members discussed at length.

During the budget session, majority of the members staged a walkout, including the ruling party members on Monday, and decided to boycott the session, showing their anger over the non-allocation of funds to all union councils on equal basis. Objections were also raised by some of the members that projects and schemes which were already completed had been included in the budget. They refused to give approval.

However, on the third day of the budget, some proposals by the members were acknowledged by the district Nazim and funds for minority members, women and labour members were increased to Rs500,000 from Rs200,000.

The district Nazim, speaking on the occasion, told the house that for the current running expenditures an amount of Rs86.4601 million had been allocated, Rs115.41 million for the developmental schemes, Rs31.265 million for running expenditures of the TMA and Rs40.282 million had been kept aside for the developmental schemes.

Mustafa Jadoon said the provincial government would provide further funds for the different schemes and projects and disclosed that two small dams would be constructed at Harno and Rajoya, the provincial government would make the announcement the next week.

DEATH SENTENCE: The Anti-Terrorist Court Abbottabad has awarded death sentence with the imprisonment of 25 years and fine of Rs120,000 to Atif Zaman, for the murder of nine-year-old Wajahat Ali.