Islamabad: Secretary Ministry of Youth Affairs (MoYA) has said that under the National Internship Programme, 43,000 interns are currently placed in ministries/divisions and district government offices all over the country.

He stated this at a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Youth Affairs that was held at the Committee Room of the National Assembly Secretariat under the chairmanship of Senator Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi.

The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the slow verification of degrees from HEC and delay in the provision of stipends to interns.

The MoYA secretary informed the meeting that a total of Rs2.34 million-budget has already been released to different provinces through Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) for NIP.

He further briefed the committee regarding the late utilisation of funds where interns are not being provided stipends in time, although the ministry has released funds to the concerned AG offices.

The committee was further informed that in many districts of NWFP, interns are not being paid timely stipends.

It was decided that the sub committees of Senate standing committees would hold meetings in the provinces to take up stipend related issues in which the concerned provincial government AG, district accounts officer and district coordination officer would participate.

The committee was informed that some universities have very slow response regarding degree verification, which must be expedited. The committee proposed that the universities’ grant might be inter-linked with the verification ratio to expedite the verification process.The news