HYDERABAD, Aug 19: The Sindh finance department is considering direct transfer of funds to union and taluka councils to avoid inconvenience, a well informed source in the department told this correspondent on Tuesday.

The source said accounts of union and taluka councils would be converted into account-4 which would be operated as a non-lapsable account.

The funds that are released to the councils include the share of octroi and district tax.

It is a longstanding demand of the councils that their share of different funds should be directly transferred to their accounts. Union council Nazims of rural areas even before introduction of the devolution plan had complained that they were not getting their share of octroi and district tax for the last several months.

The source further said now the property/betterment tax would be collected by the district government and after deducting its 10 per cent collection charges, it would give the remaining amount to the taluka municipal administration.

He said the matter had been finalized in principle by the department and a final decision in this regard would soon be made.

The official stressed the need that union councils should reduce their staff by sending it to surplus pool as only then they could save money for development works. He said the employees sent to surplus pool should be accommodated in other departments.

He said a new policy regarding payment of house building and motorcycle advance had been devised and now each department would give this amount to their employees. He said funds for these heads were likely to be released by October this year.

It was also learnt that no decision had been taken regarding re-validation of lapsed funds of different heads of the Hyderabad district government.

WASA: The director-general, Hyderabad Development Authority, Ali Ahmed Lund, has directed the Water and Sanitation Agency taxation officials to accelerate the pace of recovery and to evolve a strategy for the success of the recovery campaign being launched from Wednesday.

Mr Ali was presiding over a meeting of taxation department officials on Tuesday.

He warned that those officers who failed to achieve the recovery target would be taken to task.

In his briefing, the recovery coordinator, Shaukat Hayat Bhutto, said that the recovery campaign schedule had already been given clear instructions to take legal action against the defaulters.

He said vigilance teams had been appointed to disconnect water supply to the defaulters, and added that the commercial consumers had been given the facility of paying their water bills in instalments.

The recovery coordinator has notified that the installation of motors on water connections was not only immoral but also illegal.

He warned that those consumers who had installed direct motors would be prosecuted. He further said that all the illegal consumers should get their water connections regularized by Aug 30 at the latest, otherwise action would be taken against them under the Land Revenue Act 1967 and they would be arrested.

He said that a campaign would also be launched against government departments from Aug 25.