TMAs not very sporting

ATTOCK, March 28: For two years, the municipal administrations of six tehsils have not released funds from the allocated sports budget to the district sports department. Sheikh Asif, district sports officer, disclosed this at a meeting of District Hockey Association (DHA) on Sunday evening. Every Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) had allocated two per cent of its annual budget for the promotion of sports and regularly released the money to the district sports department till 2009. The officer told the meeting that he had reminded the administrations of the six TMAs for releasing the funds for sports. He said with the new financial year only three months away, the funds for sports would lapse if not released. He said the funds lapsed last year also. He said only the district government had released Rs0.4 million to the sports department during the current financial year. Mr Asif said every TMA has allocation of about Rs1.8 to Rs2 million for sports fund in its annual budget. He added that the money for sports activities cannot be used for another purpose. Shakeel Ahmed, district coordination officer, who is also administrator of the District Council, said TMA administrations believe that under the local bodies' rules, they will individually use the two per cent allocation for sports. But he admitted that all TMA administrations had issued allocated sports funds to the district sports department till 2009.