ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: The second part of the multi-billion Tawana Pakistan Programme (TPP) appears to be deviating from its original objective of eradicating malnutrition among girl students because the revised programme is to provide biscuits and milk instead of medicines and micro-nutrient food supplements, officials associated with the project say.
This is the second such controversy surrounding the TPP since its inception about five years ago. Previously, the parliamentary committee had accused the federal government of misappropriating huge amounts of money by supplying substandard or outdated medicines to over 0.5 million girl students of about 4,000 schools in 29 poor districts of the country.
“The revised programme looks more of just utilisation of funds instead of improving health conditions of the girl students of mostly rural parts of the country,” says a senior official, who has been associated with the project since its inception.
The project was aimed at eradicating malnutrition among girl students through food supplements that common biscuits could not do, the official said.
Under the revised PC-I, girls instead of getting freshly prepared mid-day food would now be getting milk and cookies. A tender in this regard has already appeared in newspapers, seeking bids from reputed milk and biscuit manufacturers.
The programme worth Rs3.6 billion had started in September 2002 and remained in the field until June 2005. The ministry of social welfare, the Aga Khan University, supported by 11 partner NGOs, had been engaged to participate in the design, education and training, research and evaluation aspects and to support implementation of the project.
With the beginning of the TPP, the then federal secretary, ministry for social welfare, Parveen Qadir Agha, on record admitted that the local governments were not cooperating with the ministry and considering it as an encroachment on their authority. Later on in May 2004, the Senate Standing Committee on Women's Development following press reports of financial mismanagement underlined the need for reviewing the TPP and suggested that funds earmarked for the purpose should be properly scrutinised.
A story appeared in Dawn in March 2005 revealed that how Rs8.5 million was siphoned off during the purchase of substandard medicines and micro-nutrients. These substandard medicines and food supplements caused stomach disorder and vomiting among girl students.
“There was nothing wrong with the original PC-I of the project,” the official responded to a query. “It was just mismanaged.” Now with the revision of its PC-I, the basic idea behind the TPP — community participation to increase girls enrolment in primary schools — would no more be there, the official said.
The project focused on community participation and empowerment through decision-making at the School Tawana Committee (STC) level, which comprises mothers and other community women, teachers and students, and is responsible for planning, preparing and managing the feeding process.
An official of the department of community health sciences, Agha Khan University, who requested not to be named, said the revised PC-I of the TPP was totally flawed.
“The new PC-1 will result in a great loss to the essence of this programme i.e. the empowerment of girls, parents and communities. It is said that cartons of milk and cookies would be provided to girls. One can only imagine the potential for corruption if the programme is to change into a milk and cookies programme, as well as the loss of benefits involved from the process of community planning for the nutrition of their own children,” the university official involved in the first phase of the TPP warned.
When contacted, TPP Director-General Irfanullah Khan refused to comment and referred to Joint Secretary Shafiquzaman who was also not available for the official version on the TPP.