July 01, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 26, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 30: The Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare on Monday directed the ministry to urgently conduct a survey to assess the actual number of street children in the country and formed a sub-committee to probe into the alleged mismanagement in Tawana Pakistan Programme (TPP).

“Pick these children from the streets with the help of civil society, educate and train them to stand on their feet by enabling them to earn a decent living,” said chairman of the standing committee Mohammad Naseer Mengal during the meeting held at the Parliament House.

The committee members differed with the figure given by the ministry officials regarding the number of street children in the country. The ministry officials told the committee members that there were a total of 35,000 street children in the country according to a survey conducted in 2004.

However, the committee members challenged the figure saying, the number could not be less than 150,000 and that it was constantly increasing.

The committee members also termed only one national child protection centre, which is presently working in Islamabad, as insufficient and called for opening such centres in all the four provinces of the country.

A source told Dawn that when the committee directed the ministry to conduct a fresh survey, the secretary of the ministry, G M Sikandar, complained about lack of funds. The committee members asked the government to accord priority to the social sector and allocate more funds for it for making a significant impact.

Meanwhile, the standing committee members also took strong exception to the alleged financial irregularities in the funds of Tawana Pakistan Programme (TPP) which was launched by the government in 2002 and then suspended in 2005 after detection of huge irregularities.

The committee members formed a sub-committee, to be headed by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Enver Baig, to conduct a thorough probe into the matter.

Talking to Dawn, Senator Baig said the meetings of the sub- committee would be opened for electronic and print media so that the people could know about those who had misappropriated their taxed money. He said the TPP was re-launched by the caretaker government without probing the financial irregularities worth over Rs1 billion.

According to an official handout, the standing committee directed the ministry to set up special counters in all district headquarters hospitals for helping the poor deserving patients with serious diseases by arranging free medicines, blood, artificial limbs and clinical tests.

It termed the present procedure of verification of data of such patients as being too lengthy and cumbersome, observing that the procedures must be simplified so that even poor and illiterate people could understand these and be able to get Zakat/Baitul Maal funds swiftly.

Some of the committee members said there were instances that many deaths have occurred while the patients had been trying to fill in the lengthy forms and completing other bureaucratic/official formalities. They asked the ministry officials to get the help from National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and spare the poor patients.

The meeting was attended by Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Shujaul Mulk, Semeen Siddiqui, Rehana Yahya Baloch, Afia Zia, Enver Baig, Dr Khalid Soomro and Kulsoom Perveen.