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ISLAMABAD: With the devolution of more than a dozen ministries and divisions to the provinces, the parliamentary committees pertaining to them will be dissolved. A notification in this regard is expected to be issued shortly, according to sources.
The devolution process has to be completed by the end of this month in compliance with the 18th Amendment. Under the national development programme for 2011-12, the Planning Commission has made no allocations for the ministries and divisions to be devolved to the provinces.They are health, food and agriculture, education, population welfare, livestock and dairy development, environment, special initiatives, women's development, social welfare and special education, labour and manpower, local government and rural development, tourism, culture, and sports and youth affairs.
The service delivery of the Population Welfare Programme has been under the administrative control of the provinces since 2002. Under the 18th Amendment the provincial governments will have to implement the entire programme which the federal government will finance over the next four years.
According to the annual plan document for 2011-12, Rs4.1 billion has been reserved for the federal programme against the capped allocation of Rs3.3 billion last year. With a view to continue mainstreaming population factor in the overall development planning, functions of the population welfare ministry like policy, planning, population projections, research and coordination have been given to the planning and development division.
Four organisations or institutions have been shifted to the division are: National Institute of Population Studies, National Trust for Population Welfare, National Research Institute of Fertility Care and Warehouse, Karachi.
For women development, the government has allocated only Rs21 million for continuing selected development programmes at the federal level. These include family protection and rehabilitation centre in Islamabad, establishment of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto centres and women empowerment centres in AJK and resource centre in Gilgit-Baltistan, a women centre in Baltistan and a day-care centre at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. The implementation of UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women will be with the federal government because being a signatory to the convention Pakistan has to present progress of the national plan of action to the UN committee.
