MUZAFFARGARH, Aug 12: Hundreds of needy women have yet to get Baitul Mal allowances despite a protest on Aug 2 and assurance by the district coordination officer.

There are 25,780 people registered with the Baitul Mal and they get Rs3,000 every six months. The Baitul Mal was supposed to distribute Rs8 million among all deserving people registered with it in June, but it could not . The delay forced several women to stage a sit-in in front of the DCO office on

Aug 2 and the DCO told District Baitul Mal Manager Mahmoodul Hassan to distribute funds among the needy immediately.

Later, some of these people were made payments through the general post office (GPO). But some people told Dawn on Saturday that they had not been given funds because Baitul Mal officials were distributing these funds through their agents.

Fazlan Mai from Mahmood Kot told Dawn that she visited GPO thrice to get her allowance, but the official concerned asked her to come some other day. She said she was too poor to visit the GPO again and again. She said that GPO officials were making payments through their agents who were giving people Rs1,000 instead of Rs3,000.

Ms Nazir from Budh and Zaitoon from Basti Balochan said they had visited the GPO four times, but they were not given allowances because they refused to get this money through agents.

Senior Postmaster Syed Mujtaba Shah said that delivery of funds to people was delayed because of incorrect lists sent by the Baitul Mal office.

The district Baitul Mal manager admitted that the list of deserving people had “little errors”, but said that GPO officials should not have delayed the payments.

Some union nazims were seen at GPO helping their female supporters get funds, while those who had no ‘helpers’ were looking around helplessly.