February 04, 2008	Monday	Muharram 25, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: Data pertaining to the last five years show that the annual Zakat collections through saving bank accounts have remained static at around Rs4 billion, indicating that the collection is not keeping pace with the economic growth.

The Central Zakat Council (CZC), at its meeting on Saturday, decided to initiate a public awareness campaign about the disbursement of Zakat funds in order to allay doubts about alleged misuse of funds.

Vakil Ahmed Khan, secretary of the ministry of religious affairs, and administrator of general Zakat, who attended the meeting, told Dawn on Sunday that the council, which had met after four years, decided to allow a raise of 50 per cent, up to Rs5,000 per month, in the salary of staff of the Zakat distribution system.

The meeting presided over by Supreme Court Judge M. Javed Buttar also decided to enhance the annual grants for medical treatment of poor patients at 14 national-level hospitals and health institutions, including the Nishtar Hospital (Multan), CGH (Rawalpindi), Kidney Centre (Karachi), the Khyber Teaching Hospital (Peshawar), Government Lady Reading Hospital (Peshawar) and the Lady Duffen Hospital (Quetta). From the total Zakat money, the country’s leading hospitals are given an annual grant of Rs500 million while the remaining amount is distributed among provincial Zakat councils.

Under the rules, a deserving family gets Rs3,000 every six months, besides certain amounts for stipends to technical institutions, colleges and university students.

The CZC decided to constitute a committee for inspection of 32 hospitals to recommend their enlistment and enhancement of Zakat grants.

The committee approved a number of changes in the “Zakat disbursement procedure” to help the beneficiaries.

The meeting also decided to constitute a committee to explore new avenues for Zakat deduction in consultation with the Council of Islamic Ideology.