PESHAWAR: The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided payment of monthly stipend for Pesh Imams (Prayer leaders) across the province from upcoming financial year.

Around 22,000 Pesh Imams will be granted a monthly honorarium of Rs.10,000 each. The provincial government will spend an amount of approximately 23 million rupees per month and an amount of around 2.5 billion rupees per annum on the scheme. The decision was taken in a meeting of Auqaf Department held here Monday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair.

Beside, provincial minister for finance, Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Auqaf, Zahoor Shakir and Secretary Auqaf and Religious Affairs, Shahid Sohail, the meeting was attended by other concerned high ups.

Briefing the meeting about the progress made so far on the grant of honorarium to Pesh Imams, it was informed that through district administrations data of all the prayer leaders in settled districts of the province had been collected for grant of honorarium. The Chief Minister directed the high ups of the department to expedite work on data collection of Pesh Imams in the newly merged districts as well and to complete all the arrangements for payment of the honorarium to them across the province from 1st July 2021.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021