LARKANA, Aug 2 The taluka council Larkana on Saturday passed budget for 2009-10 with majority votes when six ADP members lent support to the taluka nazim.

The budget sessions had earlier been held twice on July 25 and 28 but they had to be postponed over lack of quorum.

Taluka Nazim Qurban Abbasi said in his budget speech that volume of income was Rs268.821 million and the total expenditure was assessed at Rs236.726 million, with a surplus of Rs32.095 million.

He said that a lion's share of the budget exceeding Rs150 million was being spent on salaries, pensions and clearing liabilities. Rs20.25 million were allocated for clearing Hesco dues and Rs730,000 for assistance of social organisations and the press club, he said.

He said that the taluka council had received Rs7.300 million as grant in aid from the district government in 2008-09 and would get the same grant during the current financial year.

He said that taluka municipal administration would spend Rs4.2 million and informed the council that the Asian Development Bank had identified six talukas including Larkana in Sindh for initiating solid waste management projects under soft loans.

Larkana would get Rs1.5 billion in the current financial year and over 100 disposal stations would be established in the taluka, he said.