KHAIRPUR, June 17: The budget for district Khairpur, with a surplus of Rs1.871 million for 2005-06, was presented by the District Nazim Khairpur, Ms Nafisa Shah, here on Friday. Total receipts, according to the budge documents, will be Rs3316.942 million while expenditure will be Rs3315.070 million.

Terming the budget people-friendly, Ms Nafisa Shah said aspirations of the people and elected representatives were kept in mind while finalizing the budget proposals.

She pointed out that Rs20 million were allocated as stipend of 40,000 children, their uniforms and other schools expenditures, Rs50 million to provide free meal to 20,000 primary school children of the rural areas.

She said a project in this regard would be launched to provide direct employment to about 400 women and men and indirect employment to several hundred people.

Unemployment funds for 152 disabled men and women were also allocated and their names would be identified by every UC Nazim, while emergency and rehabilitation funds have been doubled for burns cases.

Besides a separate amount had been allocated to compensate victims of breaches or any other incident that leads to financial or human loss.

About 750 scholarships would be awarded to the students studying in the institutions located in other districts, while Rs340 million have been earmarked for development. Health sector will get 25 per cent, while allocation for civil hospital has been increased by 40 per cent.

According to budget document, Rs30 million had been allocated for supply of gas to major towns.

The district nazim proposed that a council’s committee should be set up to identify areas that would be covered by this grant.

She said that Rs2.5 million have been kept for renovation of the old session court building.

The building is Khairpur’s heritage and efforts would be made to renovate it according to its original architectural design.

Some members of the council, condemned the kidnapping of three Hindu boys including Pawan Kumar, Amresh Kumar and Kamlesh and increased incidents of motorcycle snatching in the district.

PROTEST: Hundreds of people from different walks of life took out a procession against 16-hour power breakdown in the town here on Thursday evening.

Reports said that Hesco construction division had issued a letter on Wednesday about shutdown of electricity from 7am to 5pm on Thursday. The shutdown continued till 10pm.

When power supply was not restored by 6pm on Thursday evening, different organisations including Jagarta Forum, Muttaheda Mazdoor Federation and Citizen Action Committee took out a procession. The protesters raised slogans against the Hesco officials. They gathered at the civic centre chowk and staged a sit-in.

Speaking on the occasion, the leaders said that due to long spell of power outage, people were facing difficulties.

A large number of citizens also demonstrated outside the district nazim house and briefed her about the highhandedness of the Hesco officials.

Earlier people from different walks of life took out processions here on Thursday in protest against 15 hours of power shutdown in the town.

On Wednesday, Hesco had issued a notification regarding power shutdown on Thursday from 7am to 5pm. However, the shutdown continued till 10pm in the night.

When power was not restored by 6pm on Thursday, residents started taking out protest processions and assembled at the Civic Centre Chowk.

Criticizing power suspension for above the announced time, they complained that patients, students and others had to face numerous hardships owing to the shutdown.

They accused the Hesco of committed a crime by resorting to illegal load-shedding on the pretext of the notification.

Several residents protested in front of the District Nazim House. They intimated the situation to the nazim, who condemned the shutdown, saying that Hesco was bound to abide by the notification.

NO CLUE: Police have failed to find any clue of three Hindu boys who were kidnapped three days ago.

The boys Pawan Kumar (17), Amresh Kumar (19) and Kamlesh (16), all residents of Munshi Mohalla, Khairpur, were on their way to home on Tuesday night, who could not return till Thursday evening.