Islamabad: The federal and Punjab governments have decided to release millions of rupees for development schemes in the National Assembly constituencies across the province only to the parliamentarians belonging to Pakistan Muslim League-N, while all the members belonging to opposition are being denied development funds for their constituencies.
According to official sources, the distribution of funds out of the development budget for the current fiscal year for the PML-N members would be started very soon so that these PML-N members could utilize these funds before the general election scheduled for next year.
Each constituency of the National Assembly in the Punjab would get Rs 200 million, Rs 100 million to be provided by the federal and Rs100 million by the Punjab government. Opposition parties termed government move as part of its preparations for next elections. However, the government has decided to release Rs100 million for each constituency very soon while the remaining Rs. 100 million will be released by the start of next year, because the government is short of funds.
According to report, Finance Department has released funds only for 10 percent development projects and schemes so for during the current fiscal year, due to shortage of funds. There are reports that the government has also decided to increase the development budgets from Rs.100 million to Rs. 500 million, in this last year of their government to get support of the masses before the next general elections through spending the development funds through the PML-N parliamentarians.
A senior leader of the PML-N said that the government had already received development plans from PML-N parliamentarians on the basis of the Rs500 million for each constituency. According to the reports, in those constituencies where the PML-N lost the 2013 elections, the local party leaders or ticket holders, who lost the election have been asked to prepare the development schemes and they would be responsible for the distribution and spending of the development funds. The MNAs and MPAs belonging to the opposition parties would have no say in the development works.
The opposition members said they submit the development schemes for their constituencies but government did not include them in the current fiscal year development projects.President of Pakistan Awami Muslim League Sheikh Rashid Ahmad while commenting on the lack of development funds, said the projects of Mother and Child Hospital and the Girls College Saddar in his constituency in Rawalpindi initiated by him were pending for over eight years due to lack of funds as he is in the opposition.
According to reports, the opposition members of the national and Punjab assemblies are being neglected again, whereas, during the last three years, the federal and the Punjab governments did not provide funds to the opposition members for development of their constituencies.
