Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) is launching a Parliamentary Internship Programme (PIP) through which students of 16th year of education will be placed as interns with 60 standing committees of the Senate and the National Assembly during June-August 2004.
Executive Director Pildat Ahmed Bilal Mehboob while addressing a press conference here on Wednesday revealed this.
As many as 52 academic institutions and universities, recognised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), has sent its Expression of Interest to participate in the programme. Students will be selected from 26 disciplines.
Interns will be paid a stipend of Rs 7,000 a month, inclusive of all their expensive, Bilal added.
A selection committee comprising Senator S.M Zafar, representatives of the Senate, the National Assembly, the Higher Education Commission and an academic expert, is constituted that will select the suitable students as interns with the committees, he maintained.
Highlighting the objectives of the programme he said it is aimed at providing national and provincial legislatures with an opportunity to take benefit from the fresh perspective and research support by student's intern.
Unlike Pakistan, in other democracies, parliamentarians are provided with their individual offices and staff while a staff of up to 20 persons is allocated to each committee to provide research support.
The PIP is conceived to fill that gap temporarily while Pildat is continuously lobbying that separate offices and research staff be provided to legislators and committees to enhance their performance, he maintained.
About Pildat, he said it is an independent research and training institute and recently joined USAID-funded Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Consortium.
For the next two years, 2005-2006, the programme will be expanded and interns will also be placed with individual legislator belonging to national and provincial assemblies, he added.
The first batch of interns, after receiving formal orientation and participating in a launching ceremony will start working as interns with committees in the third week of June 2004, he added.
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