RAWALPINDI, July 1: Kallar Syedan formally started functioning on Thursday as the seventh tehsil of Rawalpindi district with the beginning of the new fiscal year.

The Punjab government had earlier this year announced the upgradation of Kallar Syedan sub-tehsil to the status of a full- fledge tehsil.

Kallar Syedan was previously attached to Kahuta tehsil. District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani told this reporter that revenue offices had started functioning in Kallar Syedan. He said the new tehsil's administration would be further strengthened by allocation of more finances.

He said work would be shortly initiated on the construction of girls and boys colleges, tehsil headquarters hospital and offices of Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA).

The Punjab government would be appointing a civil judge and an additional judge for the newly established tehsil. It has also announced the construction of a ring road around Kallar Syedan at a cost of Rs30 million.

The Nazim said administrative difficulties were being encountered in running Kahuta tehsil as Kahuta and Kallar Syedan had difficult terrain and people of Kallar Syedan faced inconvenience in going to the tehsil headquarters in Kahuta.

The nature of problems being encountered by the people of the two areas, he said, were also different, which justified their administrative division into two tehsils. The other reason for the division, he said, was that Kahuta tehsil had a very large area under its control comprising 23 union councils.

Eleven union councils have now been attached with Kallar Syedan. Punjab local bodies minister Raja Basharat, earlier speaking at a ceremony held in connection with the upgradation of Kallar Syedan to the status of tehsil, said the move would usher in an era of development and prosperity in the area.

Mr Basharat said PML governments both at the centre and in the province were committed to bringing the far-flung under- developed areas on a par with towns and cities and upgradation of Kallar Syedan tehsil was a move towards the realization of this goal.

Speaking on the occasion, Provincial Minister for Public Health Engineering Mushtaq Kiani said the Punjab government had allocated Rs200 million for water supply schemes. He said with this amount 409 water supply schemes throughout the province would be rehabilitated.

HAMID ASGHAR ADDS: Punjab local bodies minister Raja Mohammad Basharat said Punjab Chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi would be invited to visit Kallar Syedan and announce a development package for the new tehsil.

He said the deputy district revenue officer and other revenue staff had been posted and a full-fledge Tehsil Municipal Administration headed by a tehsil nazim would be established after the upcoming local government elections.

Mr Basharat announced a grant of Rs50,000 each for Kallar Syedan Press Club and bar association. Provincial minister for public health engineering Raja Mushtaq Kiani, speaking on the occasion, promised provision of a grant for the repair and rehabilitation of five water supply schemes in Kallar Syedan tehsil.

Both ministers lauded the efforts of former chief of naval staff Abdul Aziz Mirza for the supply of gas to the area and for the uplift of his native town.