HYDERABAD, June 29: Senior Sindh Minister for Finance and Cooperatives Syed Sardar Ahmad has urged NGOs to participate in monitoring and development activities of the government to ensure efficient utilization of funds and proper delivery of basic facilities to the common man.

He was speaking at a grant-in-aid cheques distribution ceremony organized by the district government under the Sindh Devolve Social Service Programme at a hotel here on Tuesday night.

He observed that Sindh was rich in natural resources and there was no shortage of development funds but corruption was the main hurdle in providing basic facilities to people. He said corruption was also the reason for disparity in income and increase in poverty.

The minister regretted that funds allocated for development schemes had not been utilized properly. The result, he added, was that one class of the society was getting richer while the other was deprived even of basic facilities.

He said hundreds of buildings of hospitals and schools were lying vacant due to lack of community participation and non-monitoring of development activities.

He said Rs17 billion from the revenue side had been utilized in 11 month of the current fiscal year in the education sector but no satisfactory results had been achieved to improve the quality of education and the literacy rate.

He said a scheme that had been launched to increase the literacy rate by providing incentives to students, including stipends to girls up to class 8, would be extended up to matriculation from July 1. In addition, he said, free textbooks would be distributed among students and school management committees would be organized to strengthen educational institutions and improve the standard of education.

Mr Ahmad said the government would encourage and involve NGOs, especially public welfare-oriented organizations, in delivering basic facilities to people in an efficient manner.

He said rural health centres in Badin, Dadu, Tharparkar, Khairpur and Jacobabad districts would be handed over to NGOs working in the health sector on participatory basis. Similarly, he added, governing boards, comprising representatives of government and private sectors, were being constituted to run five teaching hospitals in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Larkana and Sukkur.