ISLAMABAD, April 6: The women development ministry is planning to open community development centres in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata), adviser to the prime minister on women development Nilofar Bakhtiar said on Tuesday. She was presiding over a meeting regarding women welfare and community health in Fata at the ministry, said an official statement.

The meeting was attended by MNAs from Fata Dr J.J Jamal and Munir Khan Orakzai, Amira Hassan, a local social worker, Noorul Haq Qadri and Asim Shafi from Fata secretariat of the NWFP governor house, and Baela Jamil, technical advisor of the education ministry.

Ms Bakhtiar said the ministry had initiated a number of projects for the socio-economic empowerment of the women in Fata. "Our main objective is to provide guidelines for the provision of basic services to the under-privileged women and children by establishing mother and child health care centres and creating self employment in the Fata region through provision of vocational training," said.

However, she said this could only be achieved with the active assistance and guidance of the local representatives and community mobilization. The adviser informed the participants that the ministry would like to make inroads into Fata through coordinated health and vocational training programmes by providing additional support to the existing facilities.

In this regard, the ministry has recently approved community development centres for Khyber, Kurrum and North Waziristan agencies as per the advice of the NWFP governor.

Ms Bakhtiar said the ministry of women development had also requested the education ministry that under and un-utilized school buildings in Fata should be converted into community centres to cut down additional expenditure on infrastructure.