HYDERABAD, Aug 5: The district government was committed to provide adequate health facilities and better education to the masses particularly to those living below, the poverty line, for which the budgetary allocations had been increased, Hyderabad District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil said here on Saturday.

He was holding a meeting with executive district officers, heads of various government institutions and NGOs at his office.

He said that previously the health budget was Rs70 million which had now been increased to Rs250 million.

The district nazim said that the total allocation for health and education sectors of Hyderabad district was Rs2.10 billion which was 85 per cent of total budgetary allocations.

He further said that now it was a responsibility of district officers to do hard work for achieving better results.

Jamil said that services would be enhanced in education and health sectors, while more facilities would be provided in educational institutions in far-flung areas.

A complaint cell was already functioning and people can lodge their complaints even directly to him, he said. He said that for prompt health care and EPI programme, new refrigerators are being purchased.

The district nazim has underlined the need for completely eradicating the menace of polio from Hyderabad and directed that the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) should be fully implemented and accelerated in every village, street, town of the district.

He was presiding over a meeting of district EPI acceleration and polio eradication committee held at his office on Saturday.

Kanwar Naveed Jamil said that adequate arrangements should be made for the three-day anti-polio campaign commencing from August 7 for which district government would extend full support.

He said that a monitoring committee headed by DCO Hyderabad would supervise and monitor the programme.

Earlier, Dr Syed Masood Hussain Jafri briefed the meeting that Pakistan was close to be declared as polio-free state, while no polio case has been reported from Hyderabad district since September, 2004.

He added that there are only eleven cases of polio in Pakistan out of which four cases are from Sindh.

He informed that total population of Hyderabad district was 1,747,146 and of children under five years of age were 297,020.

The meeting was informed that to cover the programme, 734 teams have been constituted which include 624 mobile teams, 79 in health centres and 31 mobile teams for transit purpose.