ISLAMABAD, Aug 6: The Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Special Education has observed that Pakistan Baitul Mal (PBM) should adopt such policies and programmes that strike a balance between social and economic needs of vulnerable segments of society.

The committee meeting held here on Thursday was presided over by Senator Roshan Khurshid Bharucha. The PBM was asked to focus its activities on facilitating the poor. The committee made these observations while having a briefing on the working mechanism and structure of Pakistan Baitul Mal by its managing director Brig (retired) Mohammad Sarfraz.

The meeting was informed that PBM fund was established in February 1992 with the resolve to help the poor and that it was making a significant contribution by providing assistance to the destitute, widows, orphans, and needy persons.

The committee was further informed that in pursuance of the poverty alleviation strategy of the federal government, a number of projects/schemes were being run.

These included food support programmes, individual financial assistance programmes, national centres for rehabilitation of child labour, vocational/Dastkari schools, Tawana Pakistan Project.

It was pointed out that a residential colony at Larkana, consisting of 100 houses, was completed in 2001 at a total cost of Rs32 million, and that these houses were allotted through a transparent ballot to the poor people of Larkana, Shikarpur and Jaccobabad.

The committee was told that the land mafia, in connivance with the allottees, resorted to malpractice with a view to grabbing possession of the houses. The committee took a serious note of this irregularity and constituted a four-member sub- committee, headed by Senator Justice (retired) Abdul Razzaq Thahim, to make proposals for the amicable resolution of the issue.

The committee members are Azizullah Satakzai, Syed Sajjad Hussain Bokhari and Dr Mohammad Ali Brohi. It was suggested that elected representatives should be included in the PBM board to ensure parliamentary and democratic accountability. Another suggestion was that the PBM should also be set up at provincial level and that special emphasis be made on rehabilitating the poor.

There was a general consensus that interaction between the elected representatives with the PBM authorities would not only help understand the issues, but also pave the way for their early resolution.