The Senate Standing Committee on Less Developed Areas has said that the government and federal cabinet are approving subsidies for traders and writing off loans of the industrialists but are unwilling to provide small funds for the salaries of the NCHD teachers because education is not the priority of the government.
The committee Chairman Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar expressed these views presiding over a meeting on the issues of the National Commission of Human Development (NCHD). He cited that the federal cabinet approved subsidy amounting Rs 145 billion for traders and also wrote off Rs 430 billion loans but it is not ready to allocate Rs 1.4 billion for NCHD teachers who were providing education in far-flung areas of the country.
"These teachers have been protesting for the last 100 days against non-payment of salaries but no one tried to address their grievances," he said, adding that the NCHD employees had come to Islamabad from far-flung areas to make their voice heard but none of the government functionaries at the federal cabinet level paid attention to their genuine demand primarily because they were from poor background and didn't belong to political, landlord or bureaucrat families. The meeting was told that NCHD is providing education to 0.3 million children in the far-flung areas and average monthly salary of the NCHD teachers was not more than Rs 8,000. The additional secretary finance assured the committee that there would be no delay and their salary would be disbursed on monthly basis and NCHD would be provided annual budget from the next year. However, on the issue of arrears, he assured the committee of taking up the matter with the Pakistan Human Development Fund (PHDF) and requested the committee to do the same for providing Rs 1.4 billion for payment of arrears to the employees. The committee members expressed their concerns over the state of affairs at the NCHD. Senator Nisar Muhammad Khan suggested that the committee should seek explanation from the NCHD, secretary finance and secretary education, in this regard.
The Finance Ministry official replied questions about regulations regarding enumeration of officers and staff of the Commission. He said these have been significantly improved and would be sent to the NCHD after the approval of the secretary finance.
The meeting was informed that the NCHD was established through an ordinance in 2002 and was placed under the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. The objective of setting up of the NCHD was to implement programmes and projects in the social sector with the financial support of the philanthropists to promote human development by supporting government line departments, non-governmental organizations and elected representatives at the district level in primary education, literary, income generating activities and basic healthcare services.
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