Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai Road has been lying incomplete for several months and the Shah Baiq Lane, Ali Muhammad Muhalla, Phhol Pati Lane, Dubai Chowk, Bhund Muhalla, Daryaabad, Baloch Para and Agra Taj Colony have been neglected completely, Baloch told The Express Tribune.
Residents of Lyari said that the package has made no difference to their lives.
This scepticism has carried over to the Lyari budget, which residents called another jugglery of numbers by ministers gathered at a luxury hotel.
Administrator Lyari Town Muhammad Raesi presented the town budget, with a surplus amounting to over Rs0.2 million. The total outlay was Rs659.9 million, he said at the budget briefing at a restaurant in Clifton.
This is the first budget announced after the dissolution of the local government system but residents of Lyari complained that past budgets and the Lyari package announced by the federal government had brought no change to their lives.
“Most of the roads are not built completely, people still face water and sewage problems and garbage is piling on most of the roads and creating hygiene issues,” a resident said.
On the other hand, Raesi presented the budget by saying that Lyari is the second largest town in terms of the number of employees it attracts that comes up to1,700 people working in different capacities. For this reason, Rs408.8 million, which is 62 per cent of the budget, goes in salaries and the rest is spent on development.
Raesi said that Lyari could not get its due share from Octroi Zilla Tax (OZT). “The government had to provide around Rs441.9 million in the year 2009 and 2010 to Lyari, but it paid only Rs380.6 million in instalments,” he said, “Hence, we faced severe financial problems in initiating development schemes and paying salaries to employees.”
A big share of the budget comes from OZT and this year the town expects to receive over Rs484.6 million from it. Raesi feared, however, that they will face the same problem as last year and will have meagre funds for development.
He demanded that the government give more grants to the town as it has been neglected for the past 11 years.
Besides income from OZT, the town will receive Rs30 million as special grant from the federal and the provincial government. The City District Government Karachi will provide Rs20 million while Rs4 million will be generated from miscellaneous income and saving vouchers. Income will also be generated from various taxes, he said.
Raesi informed the media that Rs544 million have been allocated for non-development expenditure, including salaries and Rs115 for development schemes. Out of the development budget, Rs49.9 million are for street lights, Rs26 million for the construction of buildings, roads, streets, internal street drains and community centres, Rs1.1 million for dustbins, Rs12 million for the development of parks, playgrounds and nurseries and Rs15 million have been allocated to pay off liabilities from last year.
Talking about the Lyari package by the federal government, Raesi said that half of the amount was spent on different schemes, including schools, roads, parks as well as water and sewerage schemes that have made Lyari very different to what it was in the previous set up’s tenure.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2010.
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