ABBOTTABAD, Oct 25: Sustenance allowance, dowry fund and rehabilitation fund have not been paid to more than 40,000 widows and orphans in Abbottabad district for the last two years.

Treatment from Zakat fund at the Ayub Medical Complex Hospital has also stopped, chairman, sub-committee of district Zakat committee, Mohammad Yousaf Khan, said at a press conference at Press Club with members of the committee.

He said only meagre amounts had been released since 1999 for the purpose.

He said the registered widows and poor people of the district through 146 local Zakat committees were paid Rs500 monthly as Guzara allowance with special fund for dowry and for the construction of damaged houses of Rs10,000. But the funds are not being paid.

He said poor patients were earlier given free medicines with the OT and other charges for minor and major diseases at the Ayub Hospital but funds to the hospital of more than Rs10 million have not been paid due to misappropriation.

A said only Rs200,000 have been allocated for DHQ hospital. Scholarships to the students have also been stopped, he said.

The Zakat officials said that the matters had been brought into the notice of the ministers concerned but they had failed to take any action and now Ramazan was approaching.

He said Rs2.9 million for the religious schools remained unutilized.