PESHAWAR, Aug 29: The NWFP government has waived the registration fee of seminaries under the amended Societies Registration Ordinance, 2005. Sources said the ministry of religious affairs had directed the provincial Auqaf department to exempt all provincial seminaries from the registration fee.

The NWFP labour and industry department, which registered seminaries under the Societies Act of 1860, used to receive Rs1,500 registration fee from madressahs.

Under the amended ordinance, an official said, the department concerned had authorised the district development officers of the industry department to receive applications from the unregistered seminaries.

An official said that during a meeting, held in Peshawar on Monday, industry development officers ha been directed to entertain applications of unregistered seminaries and forward them to the directorate of labour and industry department in a week.

Earlier, people submitted applications for registration of seminaries with the director labour and industry in Peshawar.

This decision has been taken to expedite the registration process of seminaries.

The directorate has directed the officers concerned in all the 24 districts of the province to submit a weekly progress report about the registration of seminaries.

The federal government has planned to regularise all the unregistered seminaries in the country by December.

Sources confirmed that the directorate concerned had not received any applications for madressah registration since the governor promulgated the NWFP Societies Registration (amendment) Ordinance, 2005, on Aug 17, 2005.

Under the ordinance, every seminary will submit its annual report of activities, performance, maintain annual accounts and will carry out audit of its accounts by an auditor before submitting to the registrar.

About 400 seminaries had been registered before the amendment.

The sources quoting official estimates said the province had more or less 1,600 unregistered seminaries.