24 July 2004	Saturday	06 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, July 23: The NWFP government has ignored the judiciary in the Haj quota policy under which 145 employees of different departments would perform Haj with expenses paid by the government.

It is learnt that the quota had been allotted to 27 departments except judiciary, including the Peshawar High Court and subordinate provincial judiciary.

The reason for not including the judiciary in the Haj quota is not known, but some subordinate judiciary employees told Dawn they felt that they had been discriminated against.

They added that it was sheer injustice to them that they were not included in the scheme whereas employees of rest of the departments would avail this facility. In accordance with the policy, out of 145 persons, 30 seats had been allocated to Benevolent Fund Subscribers Scheme.

For rest of the 115 government servants, the government had ordered the finance department to release Rs1,05,362 for each one of them. About Rs12.11 million would be released for these 115 persons.

A meeting was held on July 20 under the chairmanship of secretary Auqaf department, which was also attended by the secretaries of finance department and benevolent fund.

According to the official notification issued after the meeting, although the meeting gave approval for allocation of 30 seats to the Benevolent Fund Subscribers Scheme, the Benevolent Fund Board desired that it would utilize only 10 seats.

Draw for the names of government servants who will perform Haj on government expenses was held on Friday. The government directed the secretaries of all the departments to make it sure that names of all their Muslim employees should be included in the draw. The quota of 115 persons was distributed among different departments in proportion with the number of employees there.

According to the list, the number of employees of different departments who would avail the quota include: 30 employees of school and literacy department, 11 employees of home department; 8 of health department; five each of works and services, agriculture and irrigation departments; four employees each of revenue, environment and law departments; and two employees each of NWFP Assembly, administration, establishment, planning and development, information technology, excise and taxation, local government, industries, information, zakat and ushr, sports and culture, food, governor secretariat, chief minister secretariat, population, Auqaf and finance departments.