HYDERABAD, May 26: Adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister for Finance, Mr M. A. Jalil, has said that after complaints of district governments and TMOs it has been decided that the finance department will release the salary of local government employees 15 days in advance through online service.

He said that the system would reduce bureaucratic intervention and improve the quality of service of employees who received their salary late.

He was speaking as chief guest at a function arranged by the Sindh Devolved Social Services Programme and Decentralisation Support Programme of the finance department here on Thursday.

The function was held to review the current status of the SDSSP and DSP on revenue generation in TMAs with town nazims, TMAs, TO (infrastructure) and TOs (finance) of Hyderabad, Badin, Thatta, Jamshoro, Tando Mohammad Khan, Matiari and Tando Allahyar districts.

The adviser said that an extra amount of Rs20 million would be allocated for newly-created talukas in the province for two years to help them cope with budget deficit.

He said that the finance and local government departments had also been asked to resolve the matter of shortage of staff in the talukas.

He called upon the department concerned to generate and recover revenue on immovable properties in their respective TMAs and start development works and provide better facilities to people as per procedure.

He said that the excise department had not assessed property tax in a proper manner which in fact was property of TMOs.

As a result, TMOs are facing budget deficit and are even unable to pay salary to the staff.

The adviser urged town nazims to survey industrial, commercial, business centres and residential areas and other services provided by TMOs through union councils and collect property tax in such a way that poor people might not be affected.

On the complaints of participants, he said that ownership of immovable properties would not be changed without paying TMAs tax and registrar office would be made responsible not to transfer ownership rights and assured that for the purpose a procedure would be evolved.

He called upon participants to submit their annual sector plan and master plan proposals within two days so that these could be included in budget.

SDSSP project-director Qazi Kabir, DSP project-director Dr Riaz Memon and EDO (community development) Shafat Unnar also spoke on the occasion.

DCO: DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed has said that development work of Rani Bagh and its components will be started within six to eight weeks.

Speaking at tender opening ceremony here on Thursday, the DCO said that the district government had decided to develop Rani Bagh and make it a matchless place of entertainment at a cost of Rs50 million.

He said that development works of Rani Bagh and its components including Eidgah, Abbas Bhai Park and zoo would be carried out in phases where new facilities of parks, food and playing items would also be provided to facilitate visitors.

He said that after opening of tenders of development works, bids would be evaluated by the technical committee of the district government and successful bidders would be awarded their contracts within a week’s time.

Mohammad Hussain Syed said that to maintain cleanliness was another important project of the district government as such an amount of Rs75 million had been earmarked to implement it.