LARKANA: Members of the Larkana Municipal Corporation in its maiden session held in Begum Nusrat Bhutto Memorial Library Hall on Saturday unanimously passed its surplus budget.

Mayor Anwar Ali Nawaz Luhar presided over the session while his predecessor Khair Muhammed Shaikh sat as a member. The first transgender member of the council, Simrin, spoke about the little attention being paid by society to the issues of the transgender community.

Simrin thanked PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for giving importance to this marginalised segment.

“It’s quite encouraging that today I am addressing the session where majority members are male or female,” he said, adding that transgender persons in Lahore, Karachi and other big cities had shelter homes and vocational centres and they regularly received stipends as well but in Larkana, the community members were getting no such facilities and rights.

First transgender member of the house seeks due rights for his community

He urged the Sindh government and Larkana mayor to extend all such facilities to his community members in Larkana.

Grand Democratic Alliance’s Nadia Ashraf appreciated the budget and pointed towards the meager recreational facilities in Larkana and underscored the need for financially supporting girl students in continuing their studies.

Scholarships should be given to deserving girl students while vocational centres should be establish to empower women, she said, adding that absence of women-only public parks must also be considered by the mayor.

She called upon the mayor to put in his efforts towards reopening and activating the gym for women in the M.A. Khuhro Sports Complex. She said opposition should be taken along for the progress of the city.

Muneer Soomro pointed out that big a number of outsiders were sitting in the budget session and asked whether the council staff had any valid reason for allowing them into the budget session.

He called for an increase in the rent of municipality-owned shops to improve its financial position.

Muhammed Murad Brohi drew the attention of the house to the incomplete development work at the Larkana Stadium, and said that for years the work had been abandoned. Promo-ting sports and encouraging youth to these healthy activities was the need of the hour, he said, and demanded arrangements for the flood-lit sports events in the stadium.

Atta Muhammed Memon proposed setting up of a dispensary in each union council of the Lar-kana Municipal Corpor-ation.

Dr Sudham Chand complained that feeble lighting arrangements at cremation sites paired with a lack of security was creating issues which must be addressed on a priority basis.

Abdul Hafeez Samtio of GDA, Amina Jamali, Muhammed Ibrahim Khoso, Kashif Umrani, Apa Shabbiran Jokhyo, Shahzeb Ahmed Khan, Naeem Ahmed Tunio and others also spoke during the session.

Mayor Luhar assured the house that there would be no discrimination against any member and that all of them, including opposition members, would be taken along for the betterment of the city to ensure that people were served better.

Salary head gets major chunk in budget

Presenting the budget, Mayor Luhar said the outlay is a little over Rs2.726 billion and over Rs938 million has been earmarked under the salary head.

He showed the opening balance as Rs2.154 million, and said that revenue target for the year 2023-24 is Rs2.51 billion with the surplus amount of over Rs1.52 million.

Giving the break-up of other expenditures, he said Rs300 million would be set aside for pension and financial assistance; Rs500 million for development works; and Rs20 million for lighting in all 20 union councils of the corporation. An amount of over Rs672 million would be kept under the head of contingency expenses, he said.

The mayor advised all members to submit their proposals in the upcoming session.

Later, all members including those sitting on the opposition benches, approved the budget unanimously by raising their hands.

The house also unanimously passed a resolution that strongly condemned the recent incident of the desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden. The resolution was presented by the mayor.

It said incident had hurt sentiments of the Muslim community around the world. It appealed to the United Nations to initiate action against the culprit and called for punishment to the perpetrators.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2023