Page 328 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURE OF MANAMA AND MUIIARRAQ
MUNICIPALITIES FOR YEARS 1344-1365—Contd.
MANAMA. MUIIARRAQ.
Year Receipts Exp. Receipts Exp.
1352 55.6oo 49.400 33.700 30.400
*353 58,200 35.900 32,800 26,200
*354 57.300 47,600 32.600 23,300
*355 82,866 69,402 46,569 29.657
1356 92,130 96,624 49.418 46,869
*357 1,12,500 1,05,200 49.500 51,600
1358 1.04.544 93.133 59.469 83.778
1359 *.*3.947 99,180 59.825 48.500
1360 1.07.479 92.584 51.065 60,665
1361 1.09.000 96,000 49.500 57,000
1362 1,08,600 1.09.000 51.000 52.500
*363 1.28.000 1.43.000 58.600 63,800
*364 1,68.844 1,68,587 77.500 77.500
1365 2.04.391 2,06,379 89,411 85.140

Municipal Achievement.—The principal recurrent duties of the municipalities are keeping
the towns clean and providing street lights and a water supply, looking after and improving the
streets and roads within the municipal area, watering them in the summer and putting sand on the
mud which is caused after the rain, supervising the markets and places where food is sold, constructing
latrines, washing places, drains and sewers and maintaining public gardens, roadside trees, cemeteries
and abattoirs. Town cleaning and the upkeep of roads are the biggest items in the municipal budgets ;
at one time town cleaning was done by contractors but during recent years both municipalities have
taken to maintaining their own staff of coolies, scavengers and donkey carts, which are used as rubbish
carts. The improvement in the roads in the towns, especially in Manama, is only apparent to people
who saw the place some years ago. Twenty years ago few parts of the Manama bazaar were accessible
to motor vehicles and the principal shops could only be reached by pedestrians : ten years ago many
of the streets in the bazaar where motors can now travel were too narrow to allow a vehicle to pass,
but during the war, owing to the land boom which raised the value of property in the bazaar to a fan­
tastic level, little road widening has been done by the municipalities. When a municipality was
started in Muharraq there w$re only two roads op which cars could travel, now a car can penetrate
into most parts of the bazaar and the town, although many of the lanes are not wide enough to allow
two cars to pass.

The Manama meat, fish and vegetable markets were, until 1931, situated in a warren of barasti
huts with mud floors through which the surface water seeped at high tide. The monopoly of these
markets is held by certain members of the Ruling Family both in Manama and Muharraq, not, as in
most places, by the Municipality. A most fortunate fire occurred and the entire barasti market was
burned down, with no loss of life and not a very great loss of property. The present market buildings
which have metal roofs and cement floors were built in place of the insanitary barasti bazaar.
i Many of the artesian wells in Manama and Muharraq were sunk by the municipalities for the

purpose of providing a free water supply for the public, and wells donated by individuals,
1 usually as religious bequests, are maintained by the municipalities who provide the drains carrying
away overflow water to the sea.
Over a period of years both municipalities have completed large reclamation works. The
Manama Municipality filled in many of the open spaces on the inside of the Sea Road and also re­
claimed acres of land on the south of the town which was throughout most of the year under water, a
fruitful breeding place for mosquitoes. The Muharcaq Municipality filled in a deep creek which
ran up into the bazaar and which has now become the main street from the causeway into the town.

i