16 May 2004	Sunday	25 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 15: The Senate standing committee on women's development on Saturday underlined the need for reviewing the Tawana Pakistan Project and suggested that the funds earmarked for the purpose should be properly scrutinized.

The committee, with Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry in the chair, was informed that the Tawana Pakistan school nutrition package for girls was launched in 29 high poverty districts in the four provinces, Northern Areas and Azad Jammu and Kashmir at a cost of Rs3.6 billion. The programme was being executed through the Pakistan Baitul Maal and the Aga Khan University along with eleven NGOs.

As many as 530,000 rural girls of 5-12 years age group were getting freshly cooked meal six days a week along with micro- nutrient supplements twice a week.

Deliberating on the issue of honour killing, the committee observed that the status of women and men as equal citizens of Pakistan was a moral imperative, constitutional obligation and a guiding principle of a progressive society and the ministry of women development should take appropriate measures for empowerment of women, ensuring their fundamental rights keeping in view the cultural and religious values. The committee made these recommendations after having a briefing on the working mechanism and structure of the ministry by adviser to the prime minister on women development Nilofar Bakhtiar.

She told the committee that the major activity/projects undertaken by the ministry related to political, social and economic empowerment of women.

She said more than 27,000 women councillors had, so far, been trained as part of capacity-building programme while 11,000 more women councillors would be imparted training.

It was suggested that criteria should be fixed for the election of women councillors so that better lot could be expected. The idea of mobile training school for capacity building of women councillors was appreciated by the committee.

The members of the committee were happy to learn that the project had been declared the best project in the region by the United Nations.

It was informed that pilot women business incubation centres and pilot floriculture project were also being undertaken by the ministry.