September 22, 2008	Monday	Ramazan 21, 1429

MUZAFFARGARH, Sept 21: At least 14 camel jockeys who were repatriated from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are still waiting for the $1,000 compensation which the UAE government had promised to give to each incapacitated child.

Dawn learned that Muzaffargarh district topped with smuggling 200 children to the UAE from 1993 to 2005.

The government of Pakistan with the help of UNICEF repatriated these children three years ago and most of these children belonged to Basto Hamzawali, some 70 kilometres away from here in Alipur tehsil.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, UNICEF official Zaheer Ahmed said the UAE government had promised to give $1,000 to every child who had become incapacitated owing to fracture of his legs or arms during 1993 to 2005.

He said that cases of 14 children had been approved for the compensation and their accounts were also opened with Bank of Punjab.

He said neither the UAE fulfilled its promise nor the district government or the Punjab government did anything for these children.

ROTI: District revenue officials responsible for ensuring the sale of a roti at an official price of Rs2 have failed to come to grips with the situation.

People have complained that 31 sasta tandoors set up in the district are selling the roti at the official price for only one hour.

Revenue officials, who are liable to distribute free iftar to patients in hospitals, claim that since they are already doing additional duty it has become increasingly difficult for them to monitor prices at sasta tandoors as well.

The people said that these tandoors worked just for an hour after iftar where only the lucky buyer could get the underweight roti at Rs2. Owners of these tandoors, according to the complainants, refused to provide the roti after one hour on the plea that they had run short of flour.

A revenue official said that naib tehsildars and patwaris were deputed to keep an eye on the prices of roti at 25 tandoors in Muzaffargarh tehsil, four in Jatoi, two in Kot Adu and four in Alipur.

Some people alleged that the district government was only concentrating on Ramazan bazaars set up only at the tehsil level and it had no time to monitor prices at shops or sasta bazaars in big towns.

Deputy District Officer (revenue) G.M Riaz Kakar said that a team, headed by district officer (revenue) Ashraf Yussafi, had been formed to conduct raids and impose heavy fines on owners of sasta tandoors if case of any violation.

DCO Tariq Javed Malik was not unavailable for comments.