Rs14m scholarships for deserving students

LAHORE

Provincial Zakat Council has released funds of Rs14.64 million for providing scholarships to deserving students of educational institutions and seminaries.

As many as 4,795 deserving students of 14 districts of the province will benefit. This decision was taken in 163rd meeting of Provincial Zakat Council presided over by Chairman Justice (R) Akhtar Hassan, here Tuesday. Zakat & Ushr Secretary Muhammad Hassan Iqbal, Administrator Zakat Punjab Muhammad Yousaf Butt, Deputy Administrator Zakat (Field) Muhammad Sajjad Babar and Members of the Council Maulana Raghib Hussain Naeemi, Hafiz Zubair Ahmed Zaheer, Saeed Ahmed Ansari, Mohtarma Tanvir Kausar besides Saeeda Maleeka, Additional Secretary, Muhammad Shabbir Bhatti, Deputy Secretary, representatives, Punjab Finance Secretary and Local Government & Community Development attended the meeting. Provincial Zakat Council released Rs7.73 million for 1,504 male and female students of 46 educational institutions of nine districts, including Attock, Rajanpur, Nankana Sahib, Lahore, Khushab, Chiniot, Bahawalnagar, Sheikhupura and Kasur whereas Rs6.91 million for 3,291 boy and girl students of 21 religious seminaries of five districts, including Attock, Rajanpur, Vehari, Sialkot and Kasur.

Provincial Zakat Council Chairman and Secretary Zakat Punjab Muhammad Hassan Iqbal directed Administrator Zakat Muhammad Yousaf Butt to ensure immediate distribution of scholarships. 

Distinction: A PhD student from Punjab University Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG) Arslan Sarwar has been awarded Robert S McNamara (RSM) World Bank PhD exchange fellowship for 10 months at University of Maine, USA. The Robert S McNamara fellowships programme was established in 1982 by a resolution of the Executive Directors to award fellowships for full-time study or research at the postgraduate level. Among 144 participant countries, only 16 scholarships are awarded per year. Arslan Sarwar is doing his PhD thesis entitled “isolation and identification of causative agent of potato common scab and characterization of effective antagonistic bacterial strain as biological control agent” under the supervision of Associate Professor Dr Zakia Latif. Previously, Sarwar also got and successfully completed Erasmus Mundus Experts-III exchange scholarship for University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.