The Zakat deductions from PLS and other eligible accounts were carried out in all the commercial bank branches in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan, keeping with the Zakat Ordinance which was promulgated in 1980 by the then Military Dictator Ziaul Haq's regime.
The commercial bank branches made the deductions from the accounts of Muslims, except persons belonging to the Fiqah Jafaria, at the Government prescribed minimum limit taxable to Zakat.
Exact amount deducted at the bank branches for the PLS and other accounts to the Zakat Fund would be known in the next three to four days but reliable estimates place the collection made under Zakat account at the commercial bank branches in the country at Rs four billion.
It may be mentioned here that the collections under Zakat are gradually falling over the years because of increasing lack of confidence of the contributing Muslim bank account holders in the system of Zakat distribution and the alleged corruption also rampant in the Zakat organisation.
Ordinary contributors to the Zakat fund, who are PLS account holders and are Muslims, maintain that the transparency expected in collection and distribution of Zakat funds is not up to the mark and that the government has failed to come up with comprehensive accounts of Zakat collection and distribution.
It may also be mentioned here that the 'Ushr' collection under the same Ordinance is on rural produce but the collection has not gone beyond, a few millions of rupees at each provincial level.