HYDERABAD, April 1: The Hyderabad District Council members here on Tuesday approved 404 development schemes, mostly pertaining to road construction, provided that schemes proposed by the union council Nazims were also taken up.

It was decided in the meeting that if the schemes proposed by the members had been dropped from current list, they would be included by the EDO, services and works.

The session witnessed repeated verbal bouts between the EDO and the members as they refused to accept his arguments.

The members complained of being constantly neglected by the district government officials and insisted that the district council should not be bypassed in respect of approval of development schemes and other government business.

The members said that they would not approve schemes, presented by the Taluka Nazims.

Dr Ayaz Arain, the most vocal speaker of the day who quoted provisions of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance to support his arguments, said that bureaucracy had been successful in alienating the district Nazim from the members.

He said that the members had no personal feud with Makhdoom Rafiquzzaman or the district government officials and they only wanted that government works should be carried out in the light of the SLGO.

He insisted that opinion of members should be given due weight because the district council was the competent forum to pass or reject anything that came before it for discussion.

Arguing that around Rs45,000 were spent on a session of the council, he said that the bureaucrats should mend their ways and respect the role of the elected representatives.

Mohammad Yousuf Qureshi told the district Nazim that in the given list of schemes, no major road had been selected for construction in the City and Latifabad talukas.

He called for allocation of Rs1 million for funding union councils so that they could solve minor civic problems.

Khaliq Chandio said that private colonies were not selected for development works.

The district Nazim said that he would personally give approval for any scheme in case the EDO had any objection over development work in any specific area.

Responding to objections of the members, he said that after approval of the schemes, the EDO would hold meetings with the union council Nazims of every taluka to discuss their schemes.

He clarified that in several cases, schemes were initiated in a haphazard manner and he ran short of time to seek council’s approval.