Provincial Zakat Council (PZC) has doubled marriage grant and subsistence allowance for deserving persons. It has also extended the tenure of all such Districts Zakat Committees up to November 30, 2014 where new committees have not been constituted so far.
This was decided at a meeting of Provincial Zakat Council chaired by Chairman former Justice Akhtar Hassan, here on Wednesday. Secretary Zakat & Ushr Habib-ur-Rehman Gillani, Administrator Zakat Muhammad Yousaf Butt, representatives of social welfare, finance, local government departments, Maulana Raghib Hussain Naeemi and other members attended the meeting.
The meeting was told that the marriage grant of Rs 10 thousand was fixed ten years ago and it needed immediate increase under present circumstances, upon which the council gave approval to enhancing this amount to Rs 20 thousand. Secretary Zakat & Ushr Habib-ur-Rehman Gillani briefed Chairman and members of the council that the amount of subsistence allowance of Rs 500 per month was being given for the last 14 years and there was a proposal to enhance this amount due to inflation, upon which, members of the council unanimously gave approval to increase this amount to Rs 1000 per month.
The meeting decided that after declaring a person as a deserving, he will be given subsistence allowance and Eid grant for at least one year and in case of death or removing the name of the deserving person due to any other reason, prior approval of the sub-committee of Provincial Zakat Council will be necessary.
The meeting also gave approval to the distribution of Zakat fund through telecommunication companies and also launching it as a pilot project in three districts including Lahore, Sheikhupura and Hafizabad. It was decided that the data of deserving persons for subsistence allowance will be verified from the date base of Nadra. It was decided to check the data compiled for Benazir Income Support Programme and also directed all Zakat Committees to provide complete particulars of deserving persons so that the genuine deserving persons could be selected and the Zakat system could be made transparent.
Members of the council expressed their indignation over non-payment of salaries to the Zakat paid staff and not renewing the service period by District Zakat Committee Sheikhupura and constituted a special committee headed by Maulana Raghib Hussain Naeemi for issuing show cause notice and reviewing all matters for further action. The committee will submit its report to the council within 15 days.
Comments
Comments are closed.