KARACHI, Feb 14: Scholarships to the tune of Rs74 million could not be released to the girl students of secondary schools promptly as the city government is yet to finalize a mechanism for the disbursement, an official sources said here on Friday.

The provincial government had allocated and released about Rs93 million to the city government for a 10-month scholarship to be awarded to 93,000 girl students of secondary schools for the year 2002-2003. However, the amount could not be transferred to the respective EDO as yet. The current academic session completes by the end of next month.

While announcing the budgetary allocations and details last year, the provincial government had directed that a monthly scholarship of Rs100 each be given to the deserving girl students of classes VI-VIII of government schools as scholarship.

Only last month, the EDO (education) on a query had told a meeting, convened by Education Department that he was unable to distribute the scholarships as the city government had not yet transferred the amount to him.

Some of the districts, however, have started distributing the scholarships.

It is learnt that the scholarship amount meant for the studentsof schools in Karachi has not been transferred to the concerned officials due to the city government’s failure in finalizing a mechanism for the disbursement.

Normally, such grants are distributed among the students through cross cheques issued specifically in their names, according to sources who further said that upon receiving the funds, the EDO would direct education officials at town level to ensure a prompt delivery to the recipient.

Sources in the City Nazim’s office said that the city government had distributed entire funds except for the girls’ scholarship.

The city government officials could not even state as to where the funds were clogged at this point of time.

They, however, opined that the amount might have still been in the account of the DCO for eventual transfer to the EDO. They held that it would be released to the recipients soon.