PESHAWAR, Feb 22: About 125 seminaries in the NWFP province have agreed to receive financial grant from the government despite stiff opposition from the Ittehad Tanzeemat-i-Madaris Deenya, a coalition of five seminary boards.
Officials said that some nine major seminaries in the province had already been receiving the assistance from the government.
They said that the government would soon release the grant under the Madressah Reforms Project (MRP) to 125 seminaries as the provincial home department had submitted a report about registered institutions.
All seminaries are required to be scrutinised and cleared by the provincial home department for receiving the government aid.
Under the project, the government would pay Rs500,000 to each registered seminary for the purchase of furniture, textbooks, sports goods and payment of salaries to the teaching staff.
The government, they said, would also provide four trained teachers to each Ibtidaia (primary level) registered seminary for teaching formal subjects. The government has also linked the aid with the introduction of modern subjects including English and Math.
The Itehad-i-Tanzeemat-i-Madaris Deenya (ITMD) had decided to terminate the affiliation of the seminaries found to have received the government aid.
Maulana Hanif Jalandhri, a central leader of the ITMD, said that the organisation still stood by its decision and would cancel the affiliation of any seminary which received the government aid.
“The financial aid would provide the government an excuse to interfere in the affairs of the seminaries,” he told Dawn by telephone from Multan.
Official sources said that nine major seminaries in the NWFP had been receiving Rs1.5 million annually under the project from the federal government.
A seminary in Peshawar run by a National Assembly member belonging to the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (F) had been receiving assistance from the federal government for three years, they said.
The seminaries receiving cash assistance from the federal government include Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, of Senator Maulana Samiul Haq, Markazi Darul Qura, Peshawar, run by MNA Qari Fiazur Rehman Alvi, Jamia Darul Uloom Islamia, Mardan, and Darul Uloom Jamia Islamia, Swat.
