BAHAWALPUR: The Punjab government has decided to include 10 villages of tehsil Ahmedpur East in the Southern Punjab Poverty Alleviation Project (SPPAP) costing over Rs7.56bn.

This was told by SPPAP Project Director Raja Dastgeer in a meeting chaired by Deputy Commissioner Shozeb Saeed here.

According to an official handout issued on Tuesday, Mr Dastgeer said the deserving people, especially women, of tehsil Ahmedpur East’s 10 rural areas namely Noorni, Mubarakpur, Hatejhi, Mandal, Kulab, Sarkheal, Ali Kharak, Kotla Musa Khan, Bahwalpur Ghalwan and Rajharo, would be among the beneficiaries of the SPPAP which would also have three districts of Bahawalnagar, Muzzafargarh and Rajanpur. He said the provincial government intended to utilise Rs1bn from the total allocation of over Rs7bn on these districts.

Mr Dastgeer said the deserving people of the under-developed 10 villages would get the package for goat farming, small agricultural plots, vocational training, enterprise training, improvement of community physical infrastructure, food community infrastructure, food bank and agriculture loans. He said the landless persons would also be provided with help to make them financially sound to stand on their own feet to earn their livelihood.

QAMC BOARD: The specialised healthcare and medical education department of the Punjab government has reconstituted the six-member board of management (BoM) of Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (QAMC), Bahawalpur, deleting the names of three non-official members nominated in the last BoM notified in April 2019.

According to a notification, a copy available with Dawn, three new members had been nominated. They are Noman Haqqi as a financial expert, Dr Tahira Parveen, a retired medical superintendent of Bahawal Victorai Hopital (BVH) and retired Brig Moeenuddin Ghazali as a management expert/retired civil and military officer.

The names of QAMC former principal Prof Dr Ijlal Haider Rizvi as an eminent retired professor of the medical college, PTI tehsil president Tahseen Gardezi as a distinguished citizen and Malik Tahir Awan, nephew of PTI MNA Farooq Azam Malik, had been retained in this notification too.

The BoM would elect its chairman/president in its first meeting to be convened by the secretary specialised healthcare and medical education.

It may be recalled that the last BoM, which has now been reconstituted, had failed to elect its chairman in its first meeting and the matter was referred back to the Punjab health secretary.

NGOs: The social welfare department has warned the unregistered non-government organisations (NGOs) to register themselves under the Social Welfare Agencies (Registration and Control) Ordinance 1961 with the district administration by July 15 or face action.

The warning was issued during a meeting of the department chaired by Deputy Commissioner Shozeb Saeed. The DC expressed surprise that there were reports of about 1,600 NGOs in the district registered with different departments, including social welfare and industries but their practical work in the field could not be visible regarding social and welfare services for the masses. He said that if the registration of any NGO had expired, it should also get the registration renewed by July 15.

Social Welfare deputy director Sahar Siddiqui also directed the NGOs to submit their annual reports regularly with her office.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2019