PESHAWAR, Nov 20: The NWFP government has registered the birth of 1.35 million children within a period of one year.

Dr Hammad Uwais Agha, secretary of the NWFP local government department, stated this on Tuesday while speaking at a ceremony at which an award was given to the Jabori union council, Mansehra, for achieving high birth registration.

The ceremony was part of the Universal Children’s Day celebrations, held to commemorate the adoption in 1989 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (UNCRC), said a press release.

Dr Agha said the NWFP government had earmarked Rs69 million for computerisation of 986 union council offices to make the Universal Birth Registration Project (a joint venture of the Local Government Department and Plan Pakistan, an NGO) a success.

The NWFP government had declared 2007 as the year of birth registration, promulgated model bylaws regulating the birth registration process and allocated budgets at the district, tehsil and union council levels.

In his view, these measures had helped the government in achieving around one and a half million registered births in the province during the last one year.

In this regard the Jabori Union Council in Mansehra was declared the best union council of the province.

The secretary of the Local Council Board, Khayyam Hassan Khan, who was present on the occasion, announced the grant of Rs150,000 as award for a children’s development project, and a commemorating shield and a certificate for Jabori’s nazim Anwarul Haq. Dilbar Hussain, secretary of the same union, was also given an award.

Javed Khan, national project manager of the Universal Birth Registration Project, said it was funded by the Dutch government and was being implemented in 1,208 union councils of three Pakistani provinces — including 986 union councils of the NWFP, 127 union councils of Sindh and 95 union councils of Balochistan.

Mr Khan said that in the NWFP and Sindh all 3,339 union nazims, naib nazims and secretaries were imparted training on child rights and needs.

In Balochistan’s 95 union councils, 1,330 union councillors, including nazims and naib nazims, are being trained.