KARACHI, Oct 30: The Sindh Ombudsman, Yousaf Jamal, on Saturday called for creating an awareness among masses about "access to justice programme" , saying that intensive training courses were needed to enhance capacity building for the departments engaged in the dispensation of administrative justice.

"A massive awareness programme is needed to get the people realize the importance of this programme which is aimed at providing cheap justice to masses at their doorstep," he felt.

He was speaking at a workshop on "implementation of the next phase of the access to justice programme (AJP) reforms for focal persons of the implementing agencies in Sindh here at a local hotel.

Yousaf Jamal said that concerted efforts would be required to yield visible and communicable results in the reforms programme.

He further stated that another essential pre-requisite is to establish credibility of the ombudsman institution as people are hesitant to lodge complaints when they see that their complaints are not entertained and grievances are not addressed in its real sense.

To reverse this situation, he observed, executive organs of the governments should be on the board of institution with the coordination of field agencies.

Calling the technical assistance programme, a part of the AJP, a project of much importance in capacity building, he noted that it had immense utilization for provision of administrative justice to masses.

Speaking on the role of the office of Sindh ombudsman, he said that since its establishment 12 years back, around 90,000 complaints have been received, and of them 20,000 pertained to the federal ombudsman which were lodged by the people owing to lack of knowledge.

The break-up of the 70,000 complaints which pertained to the Sindh ombudsman shows that annually on average 6,000 complaints were lodged.

The Ombudsman called the access to justice programme (AJP) the single biggest judicial programme ever in the history of the country and added that if implemented in its true sense, it would help in the dispensation of cheap justice to masses.

Ghulam Sarwar Khero, additional chief secretary, giving an overview of the AJP in Sindh, said it has confronted some problems during the course of implementation in province.-PPI