KARACHI, Jan 22: Despite the lapse of considerable time, about 93,000 girl students of 429 schools in the city have not been provided with the monthly scholarship for the year 2002-2003.

According to sources in the Sindh education department, the city district government Karachi, like other district governments in the province, was released an amount of Rs93 million about five months ago for distribution among girl students of class VI to VIII in the government-run schools of all the towns.

However, the city government failed to ensure the timely distribution of the scholarship, while a few districts in the province have started delivering the amount to the students, added the sources.

It was learnt that the government had released an amount of Rs178.339 million for all the districts so that it could be distributed among 17.833 million girl students of class VI to VIII at the rate of Rs100 each for ten months, as an incentive for continuing secondary school education.

The delay in disbursing the amount by the city government was also taken up at a meeting of the officials of the Sindh education department and the city government’s education department on Wednesday. The meeting, chaired by secretary education Nazar Hussain Mahar, had been convened to discuss rent cases of schools and colleges. Some other hard-pressing issues were also considered and decisions reached upon, said a source.

According to sources, the EDO (education) of the city government, Prof Rais Alvi, told the meeting that the scholarship funds for girl students had not been released to him so far by the district government. The chair asked him to expedite the distribution of funds to promote girls’ education.

It was also resolved that the district government would provide a report on the utilization and distribution of funds by school and college management committees within two days, as there were reports that no funds have been released to the district education officers.

The meeting decided that salaries of those teachers/lecturers who had been transferred on a need basis but not yet joined their duties would be stopped. Implementation of the steering committees’ decisions regarding Friday’s timing would be ensured, the meeting decided.

It was also decided that the Centralized Admission Policy fund would also be utilized to provide computer facility to the eight newly-established colleges and higher secondary schools in Karachi, which lacked computer facilities. The EDO and the DO would be authorized to use the fund.

RENT CASES: It was resolved in the meeting that a transparent mechanism would be devised to pay rents on time to owners of those schools and colleges which have been under government use since their nationalization. The amount available for this purpose would be spent on payment of rents only.