LAHORE, July 19: The six town municipal administrations (TMAs) in the city district are cash-strapped due to an inequitable distribution of resources between them and the City District Government (CDG).
The CDG controls only 32 major roads in the provincial metropolis whereas the upkeep of adjacent areas as well as the rest of city roads is a responsibility of town administrations. However, the CDG gets the lion’s share of the government funds despite being responsible for a far smaller area than even the smallest of towns.
District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmud claims that the City District Government has been entrusted the responsibilities, but resources have been diverted to town administrations. The City District Government budget for the current financial year is worth Rs5569.818 million while that of its constituent Lahore Development Authority amounts to Rs5450 million. On the other hand, the total budget of all six towns is only Rs1692.607 million, with the Aziz Bhatti Town accounting for Rs96.8 million, Allama Iqbal Town for Rs185.186 million, Ravi Town for Rs142.158 million, Data Ganj Bakhsh Town for Rs971.611 million, Shalimar Town for Rs119.5 million and Nishtar Town for Rs176.352 million.
The City District Government has also retained the control of Solid Waste Management and Water and Sanitation Agency despite the fact that sanitation is the responsibility of town administration under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001. Apparently, the CDG is reluctant to devolve sanitation to the town level because it is not ready to lose over 10,000 of its 44,000 employees. It has also started collecting sanitation fee through Wasa water supply bills and expects to raise over Rs110 million.
The town administrations and the district governments are autonomous units under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001, but the funds allocated by the provincial and federal governments for towns and union councils are used through the district governments.
The income from Kot Kamboh Slaughterhouse in Allama Iqbal Town is distributed among the other five towns but the City District Government gets the entire income generated by the Badami Bagh General Bus Stand in Ravi Town.
There is a tug of war between towns and the CDG as to who should control commercialization. The town administrations think that the grant of permission for commercialization of plots and buildings falls within their jurisdiction on account of the powers vested in them for sanction of site plans. The CDG considers it a prerogative of its own as it controls the 32 most important roads in the provincial metropolis and the District Coordination Officer heads the designs committee for sanction of site plans on these roads no matter in which town the plot is located.
The CDG not only interferes in the distribution of financial resources but also in development activities in the towns. Coordinators have been nominated by the district Nazim at town and union council levels for supervising development works funded by the CDG in towns and union councils where the Nazims belong to political parties other than the PML-Q.