ISLAMABAD, July 25: Inordinate delay in amending the out- dated Societies Act-1860 is hindering the registration of madressahs, a source in the Auqaf Department told Dawn.

As the act is being revised, the religious affairs ministry has barred the auqaf departments from registering seminaries, the source said.

The source said the government had announced Madressah Reforms Package in 2001 under which a Madressah Board was to be formed for the registration of seminaries. However, the package is stated to be in the doldrums causing delay in the registration of the religious institutions.

The source said so far madressahs were registered under the Societies Act-1860 which was required to be amended for the reform process.

Under the Societies Act, registration of seminaries was a provincial subject and without amendments to the act, a centralised mechanism of madressah reforms could not be established.

The source said all the relevant departments had been directed not to register the seminaries unless the Societies Act was amended. As a result of the directives, relevant departments were reportedly not entertaining the cases of registration of madressahs.

The government launched the madressah reforms project in 2001 with total allocation of Rs5.7 billion. But unfortunately Rs514.5 million has so far been spent on it.

The source said the existing act did not cover the issue of regulation of seminaries, audit of funds being received by these institutions and teaching of science, computer and technical subjects to the students.

When contacted, the religious affairs ministry’s secretary, Wakil Ahmed, said the government had constituted Madressah Board in 2004 but even a single meeting of the board could not be held since then. The board, he said, was headed by Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi. The other members of the board are Minister for Religious Affairs Ijazul Haq, secretary education and secretary interior.

He said an ordinance was promulgated in 2001 under which the concept of Modern Deeni Madressahs was given but only three seminaries had so far been established under the programme. These are in Islamabad, Karachi and Sukkur.

Mr Ahmed agreed that the 145-year-old Societies Act should be amended if the seminaries are to be transformed into modern deeni madressahs. “Under the existing Societies Act, we can only register madressahs but it does not provide any mechanism to regulate them,” he said.