Rs1.5b Zakat distributed among 200,000 people: minister

LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Zakat and Usher Shaukat Ali Lalika has said that with the dedicated efforts of Zakat Department more than 22,900 zakat committees have been constituted while more than Rs 1.5 billion zakat has been distributed among more than 200,000 deserving people in fiscal year 2018-19.

He said that zakat budget amounting to Rs 4 billion and 43 crore of the fiscal year 2018-19 was approved by Punjab Zakat & Usher Council. An amount of Rs 1 billion, 68 crore 90 lac has been released under subsistence allowance across the province for 140,000 deserving people. An amount of Rs. 13,000 per person for 87,000 deserving people has also been granted. For more than 6,500 visually-impaired persons special subsistence allowance of Rs 12 crore was allocated and up till now more than 3,400 such persons have been provided with Rs 19,000 each. For more than 50,000 male and female students of technical education, Rs 1 billion and 2 crore have been released to the districts the zakat committees. More than 33,000 deserving male and female students of 282 vocational training institutes have been granted scholarships of Rs 3,000 per person.

The Punjab zakat minister said Rs 72 crore and 70 lac had been released from the zakat fund for the free treatment of deserving people in hospitals in the province. More than 78,000 deserving patients have been provided with treatment facilities free of cost. An amount of Rs 1.8 million was allocated for deserving, liprosy patients in Rawalpindi district.

Shaukat Lalika said that 122 applications out of 128 received so far through Pakistan Citizen Portal had been disposed of while the rest were under process. Auto-mobile thieves arrested: Anti-vehicle lifting staff, Sadar division has arrested four car and bike thieves. Tanveer and Ramzan were among the arrested criminals. Police recovered seven cars and eight motorcycles from their possession.