RAWALPINDI, July 3: With general elections months away, the Punjab government has decided to provide Rs680 million to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNAs and MPAs for Rawalpindi district development projects.

Sources told Dawn on Monday that Lahore had asked the City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) to invite development schemes from the legislators.

There are 13 MPAs and six MNAs belonging to PML-N. The sources said that the provincial government had provided Rs40 million to each MNA and MPA for the development schemes.

The CDGR has not announced its budget let alone allocating any development funds as the provincial government had not earmarked the Provincial Finance Commission Award share for the city government.

They said the CDGR had been directed to collect the schemes as soon as possible so that the work would be completed in November.

“The Punjab government will provide Rs700 million more in August to these legislators for the development schemes especially for education, health and other sectors,” they said.

They said the provincial government wanted to complete the development projects before the announcement of the general elections as the legislator could not launch projects after the announcement of polls.

MNA Malik Shakeel Awan said that the provincial government wanted to improve the infrastructure in the garrison city and for this it had allocated Rs680 million and more Rs700 million would be arrived soon under Big City Package.

When contacted, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Saqib Zafar said that it was not unusual as such funds are received from the provincial government every year.

He said that the CDGR had completed all the homework including identification, costing and re-prioritization of the development schemes.

He said that tenders would be launched very soon and the work is likely to start by end of July.