LARKANA, May 28: More than 1,400 people, mostly widows, have not received monthly payments from Benevolent Fund since April 2006 after the Sindh government stopped release of funds to the district benevolent fund board.

According to sources in the district government, the district in April last year received a tranche of Rs20 million to clear the backlog but it was too huge to get cleared. If the government wants to clear dues, it would have to release at least Rs120 millions to Larkana alone.

On the one hand, the sources said, the government had held up the funds and, on the other, an inspection team headed by the Sindh additional secretary of services and general administration invalidated several cases of benevolent fund on technical grounds during its recent visit to a number of districts.

The Sindh government had implicitly instructed the authorities to stop extending financial support for sisters’ or daughters’ marriages, medical treatment and funeral to pensioners from benevolent fund for at least three years, the sources said.

The arrears of registered beneficiaries continued to rise but the government was trying to meet them with meagre installments, they said.

In 2006, each beneficiary was given Rs12,000 and since then they had been waiting anxiously to get the funds which continued to swell with every passing day, the sources said.

The beneficiaries regularly visited the office of the district coordination officer and the concerned branch but the response they always received was ‘funds not received yet,’ the sources said. The beneficiaries approached the district benevolent funds board only after their pensions ran out, and the widows suffered the most, they added. It was learnt that the DCO of Larkana had sent a fresh demand for Rs40 million to the Sindh government but the government had not yet released the amount.

In another development, the district government of Larkana had yet not allocated funds under the head of urgent financial support to a government employee if he died during service, the sources said.

The finance department had released the funds to the ‘un-devolved’ departments, while the devolved departments, which fell under the administrative control of district governments, were still waiting for the allocations, the sources said.

While the district government was busy in preparing annual budget, it should consider allocating funds for the benevolent fund, they said.