Punjab Minister for Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education, Dr Farrukh Javed, told the Punjab Assembly Thursday that the government was making all-out efforts to achieve 100 per cent literacy rate by 2020.
“Presently, the literacy rate in the Punjab stands at 60 per cent, and new projects are being initiated to educate and provide functional skills to almost a million of people,” he added.
The minister was answering questions by lawmakers during the question-hour session in the Punjab Assembly.
He said the department was targeting to open adult literacy centres, vocational training schools and community learning centres for women.
To a question by MPA Mehr Muhammad Fayyaz, the minister said the department was striving for the promotion of non-formal basic education and capacity building. Besides, it also arranged training workshops for teachers and monitoring staff under various ongoing projects, he added.
He told another questioner Faiza Ahmed Malik that two projects—‘Punjab Non-Formal Basic School Education’ and ‘Education for All’—running in 36 districts of Punjab were providing education/skills to adolescent at 180 non-formal adolescent education centres. “As many as 135,593 illiterate women are getting primary education in temporarily built adult literacy centres,” he mentioned.
The minister told lawmaker Raheela Anwer that the non-formal basic education department had been organising forums in various districts to educate children between the age of 5 to 16 years.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary for Environment, Akmal Saif Cheema, replying to members’ queries relating to his department, told the house that the government was taking environmental issues very seriously.
He said unchecked discharge of untreated waste water into waterways was the cause of pollution for canals and rivers which could cause diseases. He said action against those factories spreading pollution was being taken and heavy fines were being imposed on them.
The parliamentary secretary in reply to a question by Dr Salahuddin Khan, said in Faisalabad, gas analyzer was being used to judge air pollution and to gauge level of noise pollution, adding noise metres were being used and samples of polluted water were being referred to laboratories.
He said to a question by Mian Tahir that a total of 170 dying units were in Faisalabad. Of them, 23 factories had installed their own plants to treat water.
Answering to a query by Faiza Malik, the parliamentary secretary said since January 2015 to December 31, 2016, the Punjab Environment Department had checked 70 industrial units and collected Rs 1,435,000 from them as fine. Meanwhile, vehicles emitting smoke were also challaned.
He said the Environment Protection Department (EPD) was collaborating with international development agency of Germany (GIZ) for development of industry-specific standards in the textile sector.
