Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Senate Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas on Friday recommended the government for increasing the number of scholarships specified for students and sportsmen and women from FATA and Balochistan along with other less developed areas.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Usman Khan Kakar at the Parliament House. The meeting held a detailed briefing on the role, working and performance of the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination in less developed areas and FATA during last three years.

The committee was briefed in detail about youth exchange cultural programme, PM Youth Training Scheme, quality education opportunities for students of Balochistan and FATA, scholarships to schedule caste of Tharparkar district, admission of Bugti tribe students in Bawalpur, Commonwealth Scholarship Programme, Chinese government scholarship programme, Pakistan girls guide and boys scouts associations. The committee asked the ministry to urge the commonwealth and Chinese government to offer around 20 more scholarships for FATA and Balochistan in addition to the already offered 49 and 100 scholarships annually by commonwealth and China respectively. The committee after hearing about the steps taken for promotion of football in less developed areas, asked for establishing at least five football stadiums in Balochistan in Chaman, Loralai, Nushki, Khuzdar and Kalat for promotion of the sport.

The committee chairman said that football players from Balochistan should be given more opportunities to enhance their skills.

The committee also recommended starting a football league following PSL. The committee also recommended to include sports as a compulsory part of school and college education and asked for it to be a marked activity.

While talking about other programmes for less developed areas, the committee recommended enhancing the internship salaries for less developed areas to 20,000 from 12,000.

The committee also recommended increasing two times the number of interns for the next year and increasing the upper age limit to 30 from 28 for students of less developed areas. It also asked for increasing the number of delegates from less developed areas on youth exchange cultural programme.