June 27, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 30, 1427

KARACHI, June 26: The ‘Rozgar’ scheme that promised to create 400,000 new jobs at a cost of Rs12 billion was to be launched from July 1. The scheme has been delayed. It could be the first of the deadline announced by Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan in his fiery budget speech that has been missed.

National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), which has been assigned the job to handle the scheme, told Dawn that the pilot project on a limited scale would, however, be started by the bank in the first half of July.

Sources in the government and NBP conceded that the launch of the scheme had been delayed. A senior banker at NBP observed: “The bank is actively involved in finalizing this new product. There, however, are a lot of issues involved that need to be taken care of before its launch.” He assured that the scheme with tremendous public appeal for which proper preparation was needed and sustainable support structures had to be placed before the bank decided to roll it out.

The proposed scheme to cost the exchequer Rs12 billion would create some 400,000 jobs for unemployed people in the age bracket of 18-40 years. The scheme envisages that people in qualifying age group would get credit of Rs5,000 to Rs100,000 for establishing small businesses as public call offices, mobile utility stores, franchise for utility stores and own transport (taxi etc).

The details of the utilization of Rs12 billion allotted for the scheme and terms and conditions of the government-National Bank partnership in the Rozgar scheme have so far not been clarified by the government or the bank.

“We will announce salient features of the ‘Rozgar’ scheme in our pre-launch press conference,” another retail banker at NBP said and added that the bank could not disclose details of the scheme at this stage for it was a part of bank’s commercial strategy that could not be made public before the bank decided on its modalities.