KARACHI, June 12: District governments in Sindh, including the city government Karachi, are faced with a severe difficulty in formulation of budget 2002-2003, due to the persisting confusion over non-devolution of a number of departments from the province and they have decided to take up the matter with President Pervez Musharraf and the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB).

Since a number of departments have half-heartedly been handed over to the districts by the provincial government, the future of administrative control over assets and sources of earning of these departments is still in a confused state, creating problems for the districts in preparation of budget, while the same has been conveyed by EDOs to their respective Nazims.

According to sources, provincial government departments, including the cooperative department, social welfare department, sports and culture department, are yet to be devolved to the community development department of the districts.

Similarly, responsibilities and powers of agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forest departments of district governments are in a confused state though these departments have been devolved. In Karachi no definition has been provided that of which type of fisheries will be under the city government — the marine, inland or the brackish water fisheries.

Whereas other provincial departments, including technical education, are yet to become part of the literacy department and no asset and technical staff belonging to the bureau of statistics and bureau of supply has been transferred to the information technology and investment promotion department of the city government.

The confusion is not only creating severe shortage of space for different departments of the city government but is also creating problems for formation of departmental budgets.

According to sources, the Karachi city government has decided to take up the matter with President Pervaiz Musharraf and the NRB for solution of the problems after consultations with other districts in the province.

It is worth mentioning that DCO Karachi Shafiqur Rehman Paracha has also informed the city Nazim about indifferent attitude of the provincial government as regard non- implementation of the devolution plan.

However, the city government has taken the city council into confidence to approach the president and the NRB to apprise them of its grievances.

According to the sources, persistence of the situation might compel the city government to abandon the scheduled presentation of its budget as EDO (finance and planning) has also expressed its inability to prepare the budget until complete details of departments to be devolved are provided by the Sindh government.—PPI