BBSYDP not exactly what the trainees had signed up for

KARACHI – Hundreds of under-training apprentices of the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BBSYDP) in different provincial departments, particularly Health and Works and Services, have not been paid monthly stipends for the last three months, as funds worth millions of rupees have allegedly been misappropriated by erring officials.
Reliable sources told Pakistan Today that more than 1,200 BBSYDP trainees in the Works and Services Department have not been financially compensated for the last couple of months and were running from pillar to post to get justice. The female nursing apprentices in the Health Department have also not been paid their monthly stipends for the last three months and the project’s management has turned a deaf ear to their woes.
Many other basic facilities offered by the programme such as pick and drop facility, course material and stationary, except a few noting registers, are also not being provided to the students. A large number of nursing trainees have left the training institution due to non-cooperation of the project’s monitoring unit, which, according to sources, is on record and notice of the higher authorities.
The apprentices – mostly from the interior parts of the province – visit the Sindh Secretariat on daily basis to get their payments but the authorities concerned have no time to listen to their complaints. Meanwhile, the students backed by influential leaders of the ruling party get their stipends at their doorsteps every month. Recently, the affected trainees of the poverty alleviation programme also approached the Sindh Enquiries and Anti-Corruption Establishment so that it might ensure the provision of their stipends and take action against corrupt officials.
Sources in the Anti-Corruption Department said the officials are contacting other BBSYDP scholars in the Works and Services Department for recording their written statements so that proper action against the officers involved in misappropriation could be initiated as soon as possible. The department is collecting all facts and details of the students for further action, however, candidates are not willing to lodge a written complaint fearing that the authorities may take action against them, the sources added.