Effort underway to compile NGO data, Zobaida tells NA

* Dormant organisations will be removed from government list

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The Social Welfare and Special Education Ministry’s has begun compiling data of NGOs working in the country and those found inactive will be removed from the government’s list, said Zobaida Jalal, social welfare and special education minister.

“Inactive NGOs will not be issued funds in the future,” said Jalal, while replying to questions in the National Assembly (NA) on Wednesday.

The ministry began the project at a central federal level three months ago in order to collect data of all registered NGOs in the country. “We will now be able to pinpoint active and inactive NGOs,” she said.

“It was estimated that by June 2000, the total number of active organisations working in philanthropic activities was 45,000. This number is estimated at 100,000 if both active and dormant registered organisations are taken into account. However in the absence of a central repository of NGO data, it is difficult to find out their exact number,” she said.

She told the house that the ministry had distributed Rs 75.19 million among various NGOs during 2003-04, of which Rs 9.17 million was distributed by the National Council of Social Welfare and Rs 66.07 million by the Pakistan Baitul Mal. This was used for various programmes pertaining to health, education, water supply and sanitation. She said that she had dismissed 31 employees of the Baitul Mal since 2003 and recruited 162 during the same period. “Two individuals were dismissed for corruption while 29 were dismissed for inefficiency and wilful absence,” she said.

Muhammad Nasir Khan, federal health minister, told the NA that five types of vaccines including allergy vaccine, anti rabies vaccine, typhoid cholera mixed (TC) vaccine, typhoid (TAB) vaccine and measles vaccine were being produced by the National Institute of Health.

The production of a new anti-rabies tissue culture vaccine had been planned, of which a clinical trial had been completed and PC-1 totalling Rs 140.20 million was under the process of approval, said Raheela Yahya Munnawar, parliamentary health secretary.

“This vaccine is injected only once as opposed to 14 times previously,” she said There was no proposal under consideration to set up allergy centres at a provincial level, she said.

At present, there were 13 government cancer hospitals in the country, she said. “Poorer patients are given help from the Zakat and Baitul Mal funds to purchase medicine. They are not charged room and doctor’s fees. There is no proposal being considered for free treatment to cancer patients,” she said.

Sikandar Hayat Bosan, federal food and agriculture minister, told the house that $297.04 million had been allocated for the import of wheat this year, of which $282.91 million had been spent on the import of 1.368 million tonnes of wheat so far. “No wheat was imported during 2002-03 and 2003-04,” he added.

Mian Shamim Haider, federal railways minister, told the house there was no proposal under consideration to operate broad-gauge railway tracks on the Mari Indus-Bannu section. The section was closed on January 7 1991 because the then federal cabinet deemed the section commercially unviable.

He said the responsibility of the accident that took place at Kot Mul Chand, Shahdara Bagh-Narowal section on March 5 which claimed six lives, had been directly placed on seven officials and indirectly on two officials. Disciplinary action had been taken against the individuals, the minister said.

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