FAISALABAD, May 21: The allocation of funds for tehsils and union councils shall be enhanced substantially in the next fiscal year to ensure maximum participation of local bodies representatives.

This assurance was held out by Punjab Governor Lt-Gen Khalid Maqbool (retired) on Monday night while speaking to local bodies representatives of Chiniot tehsil in Islamia College, Chiniot, some 30 kilometres from here.

He invited well-to-do people to come forward and play their due role in providing different facilities in hospitals, schools and other sectors under the community welfare programme.

The promotion of the agricultural sector and welfare of farmers, he said, were among the top priorities of the government.

He said so far the sugar mills had made the payment of about 91 per cent sugarcane, adding that the defaulter mills had been directed to immediately clear the outstanding dues of farmers.

For the cotton and rice crops, the governor assured farmers that agricultural loans, insecticides, fertilizers, seeds, and other agricultural in-puts would be provided at their doorsteps.