Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has asked Pakistan Baitul Maal to focus on facilitating marginalised and vulnerable sections of society through programmes related to medical treatment, education, food support and self-employment.
He was chairing a meeting here at the PM House on Thursday to review the performance of Pakistan Baitul Maal. The Prime Minister appreciated the performance of Baitul Maal and gave directions for further improvement.
He asked Baitul Maal to review the effectiveness of all its programmes and focus only on the areas, which are providing maximum relief to the people. Prime Minister said Baitul Maal should act on a two pronged strategy. On one hand it should provide immediate relief to deserving people particularly in fighting hunger, medical treatment and education of children.
The Baitul Maal should also focus on self-employment programmes to enable the people stand on their feet and lead a respectable life, the Prime Minister added.
Its performance has considerably improved during the last about six years as during the period 1992-2000 19.32 million people benefited from it and compared to it during 2000-O5 more than 46 million benefited from the Baitul Maal.
The Prime Minister was informed that Baitul Maal has planned to fight hunger through a safety net programme for 1.85 million households (10percent poorest households), reduction in child labour by setting up 150 centers, vocational training centers at each district and targeting 120,000 households through civil society organisations.
Under one of its programmes, Baitul Maal got 35 female and juvenile prisoners released from jails by paying fine/diyat for them.
It has opened Vocational/ Dastkari Schools at Haripur and Hyderabad jails for women. It has provided funds for construction of a state-of-art burn centre at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore. Baitul Maal spent Rs7 million on Ashianas for rehabilitation of women and children from earthquake affected areas.
The Prime was informed that Baitul Maal has disbursed Rs13 million since 1992-2000 to 1.46 million households under the Food Support Programme.
During 2005-06, 50,000 students will benefit from the Child Support Programmes and the number of beneficiaries under this programme will increase to 175,000 students during 2006-07.
A total of Rs1,375 million have been disbursed under the Individual Financial Assistance Programme for medical treatment, education, rehabilitation and shock therapy. Minister for Social Welfare, Zubaida Jalal and senior officials attended the meeting.