'NWFP facing problems in implementing social security plans'

NWFP Senior Minister Siraj-ul-Haq has said that the province is facing numerous problems in respect of implementing social security programmes aiming at ameliorating the lot of the poor masses that included un-uniformed spread of such programmes in the province, non availability of the funds, less contacts on official level and lack of effective check and balance system.
Hence he said it was essential to implement the present programmes on social security in a way to provide maximum benefits to the poor and insecure segments of society.
He was presiding over a consultation meeting of draft of national strategy on social security in the Cabinet Room of Civil Secretariat, Peshawar. He said that social security is in fact the base of Islam as Islam emphasis on welfare of the poor and helpless segments and asked for feeding and nourishing the poor in performance of all religious organs including Roza, Zakat and Haj.
He said Islam teaches about provision of relief to the entire humanity but he regretted that non-Muslims especially the West adopted anti human tactics of introducing and using weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bomb. He said that Islam asks for welfare society based on social justice and urges for checking the crimes before its occurrence and this characteristic is rare seen in other religions.
Siraj-ul-Haq said that majority of the population in NWFP lived below poverty line while poverty could be alleviated and pleasant changes could be brought about by meagre increase in their income. He expressed satisfaction over the fact that the planning commission had made comprehensive recommendations by pinpointing the core problems and its solution in its draft for national strategy on social security that he said would be seriously reviewed by the provincial government and it would fully cooperate with the centre for making it viable. However, he said that their planners had to avoid only evolving ideal projects in their air-conditioned offices but had to observe the realities by living with the poor people and closely watching their plight. He said that it was a matter of serious thinking for all of them that a poor labour wait on footpaths of Chowk Yadgar Peshawar for customer to hire him but returned home hopeless after having no job till evening.