Mansehra council approves Rs8.5 bn revised budget

MANSEHRA: The district council has unanimously approved Rs8.5 billion revised budget of current financial year 2016/17 on Monday.

“I favour unity among all parliamentary parties in the district council and thank you all on exhibiting it when you approved revised budget in the larger public interest,” stated Sardar Said Ghulam, the district nazim, while speaking in the council.

The main opposition party in district council, ie Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, also voted for the passage of revised budget and opposition leader Shahid Rafique announced to support the PML-N district government in accordance with agreement reached between them the other day.

Ghulam said that the provincial government had reduced developmental chunk to over 20 percent, following which the approval of revised budget was basic to avail funds.He said that an amount of Rs6.9 billion would go to salaries of employees of devolved government departments.

“We have earmarked an amount of Rs278 million for non-development and Rs441 million for the development of the district,” Ghulam told the council.He said that an amount of Rs4 million was also earmarked for local fund.

“We want heads of devolved departments to strictly follow the pre-monitoring mechanism in accordance with a notification issued by the provincial government and those who would breach my order would remain deprived of annual budget from next budget,” he added.

He said the government officials should respect the representatives of local government and those who would not follow him in that regard would be taken to task under relevant laws.The district nazim said that awards would be given away to teachers and students on outstanding performances since August this year under his education vision programme.