LARKANA, April 12: Larkana District Nazim Khursheed Ahmed Junejo has expressed concern over the delay in disbursing funds for girls students scholarships and school management committees (SMCs) by the EDO, education.

The funds had been released by the provincial government under the Sindh Reforms Programme (SRP) in January, sources in the district Nazim’s secretariat told this scribe on Saturday.

A research economist at the SRP, Fazal Karim Khatri, in a letter to the District Coordination Officer, Larkana, on April 10, said that the unspent SMC funds should immediately be utilized in line with the set policy.

He said that administrative problems could not be allowed to impede distribution of the SMC funds and grant of scholarships to girls students of middle schools, as they were components of education reforms and an individual’s conduct could not be allowed to affect the reforms.

The funds, he said, must be quickly distributed, responsibility for the delay should be fixed and action might be taken accordingly.

Sources said that an amount of Rs37.209 million had been released to the district government under those heads.

Around 10,169 girls students of class six, seven and eight are to be granted scholarships from the amount.

Earlier, the district Nazim, in a meeting with education officials on April 7, expressed concern over the delay in transfer of funds to the SMCs and grant of scholarships to the girls students.

Prior to it, project coordinator, SRP, Naheed S. Durrani, in a letter to the DCO on March 22, inquired about the release of funds to the SMCs and asked whether scholarships had reached the beneficiaries.

The DCO, responding to the inquiry, wrote on March 29 that the EDO, education, Larkana, had failed to provide required information in this regard.

He said that the scholarship funds had been released to the EDO on Jan 8 but the funds had not been disbursed due to lethargic attitude of the EDO.

The district Nazim, in his fresh communication to the DCO, had called for expediting the process, complaining that the education officers, who had promised to present a report to the DCO on April 11 after completing the process, had yet not responded, sources said.