June 30, 2007	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 14, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 29: The freshly-allocated Rs500 million for madressah reforms will not be released until the revised PC-I of the project is accepted, as the government has decided to put it on a hold, Dawn has learnt on authority.

The five year multi-billion ‘Madressah Reforms’ project launched in 2002-03 has completely failed to achieve its objective of bringing madressah at par with the regular school system of the country, sources in the planning commission told Dawn.

The project will be completing its five year’s implementation time period on June 30 (today). The government has decided that no more funds would be released under the Madressah reforms, till the time a new proposal is prepared, they said. “Though the government has earmarked Rs500 million in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2007-08 for the madressah reforms, but the money would only be released when a new PC-I of the project is accepted,” a government official said.