Less developed areas: Release of WFF funds demanded for carrying out projects

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Functional Committee on Less Developed Areas on Wednesday recommended immediate release of Workers Welfare Fund (WFF) funds to carry out projects in the less developed areas of the country.

A meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Less Developed Areas was held under the chairmanship of Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar here on Wednesday.

Kakar said that the functional committee of the upper house for less development areas was formed to review the development of less developed areas of the country, and issued instructions to the agencies concerned for improvement and to find suitable solutions for the problems faced by those institutions.

He said that only five percent of the world's countries were less developed but Pakistan was 71 percent less developed and 29 percent developed.

But it is unfortunate that instead of development and prosperity of less developed areas, development priorities are given only to developed areas, and situation of workers of less developed areas of the country especially Balochistan and FATA, which are rich in natural minerals, is so bad that many people do not get two meals a day.

Relevant institutions should take steps for the development and prosperity of these areas, and if there are any problems, they should inform the committees of the Parliament, so that improvements can be made.

The secretary Overseas Pakistanis and secretary Workers Welfare Fund briefed the functional committee that each province has its own set up of workers welfare and the provinces have their own boards, which carry out planning and other work.

There is a body that monitors these bodies.

The committee was informed that at the December 2019 meeting of the Council of Common Interests, it was decided that the WWF would be dissolved in the provinces and a mechanism was being set up.

On which, Chairman Committee Senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar said that it is strange that the profit making institutions are not being handed over to the provinces but the loss-making institutions are being handed over to the provinces immediately.

The committee was apprised of the details of the plans of the last 10 years for the welfare of the industrial workers belonging to the less developed districts of the country including Malakand Division, the details of the funds allocated and utilised for them.

The committee was informed that Islamabad had seven projects out of which five were for Sindh province and two for Punjab at a cost of Rs7.5 billion.

There are four projects in Punjab, 11 in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and seven in Balochistan.

The committee was informed that labour colonies in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have been completed for the last 10 years but could not be handed over due to rent or ownership issues.

The Act speaks of leasing and board ownership on which the functional committee directed to resolve the issue at the earliest.

The chairman of the committee said that instead of building labor colonies, hospitals and schools in the areas where mines, factories and industrial workers work, work has been done in the developed areas.

The functional committee recommended that labor colonies, hospitals, schools and other development works be carried out in mines, industrial units and other sectors where laborers work, so that the working class can benefit.

Rs160 billion was collected from the workers but instead of providing welfare and facilities to the workers3and their children, it has been seized by the Ministry of Finance.

The functional committee recommended immediate release of the WWF funds.

The chairman and members of the committee also expressed dissatisfaction over the number of workers registered, saying that the number of workers was too low. Hundreds of thousands of laborers work in the areas, especially in Dakki, Muslim Bagh, Harnai and other areas of Balochistan province.

The committee was informed that during the last five years, the revenue of WWF has come down from Rs25 billion to Rs7 billion, and the institution does not have enough revenue to work on the projects.

The chairman of the committee sought details of the workers from Balochistan working in the country, and directed the committee to ensure equal representation of all the provinces in the boards of the WWF and other agencies.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020