LAHORE: Mayor retired Col Mubashir Javed on Wednesday presented Rs862.743 million surplus budget for 2021-22 at a meeting of the Council of Lahore Metropolitan Corporation (LMC).
The budget outlay is Rs15 billion with expenditure estimated as Rs14 billion targeting Rs862.743 million surplus. The LMC has proposed an allocation of Rs2bn for various development schemes.
The meeting was held at Town Hall to approve the next budget of the LMC.
Total receipts in the budget for 2021-22 are Rs15bn, of which Rs7.138m are for ongoing schemes, Rs879.627m for liabilities of ADP and PMSP, Rs1.4bn for new ADP schemes, Rs25.035m for liabilities of road cuts, and Rs523.126m for PFC development.
The mayor told the session the budget was devised from Oct 18 to Dec 31, 2021, on the directions of the Punjab government. He said the government also directed the council to only use eight per cent of the budget for development during this period.
He said under the Local Government Act of 2013, eight per cent usage of funds could only be compulsory if a local government completes its time and the new government is taking charge.
He said as the new local government was not formed or even elections were not conducted to form the government, the LMC would not follow the directions of the Punjab government. He said the directions of the Punjab government were against the Local Government Act of 2013.
`As the local government case is in the Supreme Court and Lahore High Court, the Punjab government cannot impose any restriction,` he said.
He said they would have to announce development projects for the city, including repairing several roads and ensuring streetlights and other schemes.
He said the government forced them to include liabilities of the tenure in which they were not running the council and wanted to give legal cover to their actions. Mr Javed said the Punjab government had not announced the LG elections schedule and would again continue to work with the bureaucracy.
