LAHORE Punjab Minister for Zakat and Ushr Malik Nadeem Kamran has said that the government was doing legislation to curb the menace of dowry. Responding to a supplementary query during Question Hour on Zakat, Ushr and Baitul Mall at the Punjab Assembly floor on Thursday, he said that the department has devolved to the province and now the Punjab government could rationalise amount of Zakat distributed under various heads. Ehsan-ud-Din Qureshi responded to the questions relating to Baitul Mall. Brushing aside the allegation of spending zakat money on other projects and in providing matching grant for Watan Cards scheme, Nadeem Kamran said that the zakat allocation has nothing to do with the provincial budget and as such this amount could not be utilised in other projects. He said that the Punjab government provided money as matching grant for Watan Cards from its own kitty and no amount was used from allocation for zakat. Giving reasons of lack of utilisation of money from Zakat allocations, he said that the amount could not be utilised properly due to absence of committees at district and local levels. He said that majority of the local committees have been constituted across the province. He said that the process of constitution of committees at district and local levels would be completed soon that would enable the government to distribute zakat money among needy people under various heads. He said that constitution of committees was a legal obligation that could not be fulfilled due to the demands of previous coalition partner, the PPP. He told the House that the government had already made arrangements for distribution of scholarship and stipends among deserving students at identified vocational training institutes and religious seminaries. He said that that zakat money under guzara allowance, marriage grant, stipend for students and other heads would be released after the fulfilment of legal requirement of constitution of committees. He said that the money received from the federal government as share of Punjab for distribution of zakat would not lapse as after devolution of the department, provincial council was competent to use money in next budget. To a supplementary question, Ehsan-ud-Din Qureshi said that 97 percent of the amount allocated for Baitul Mall was utilised for the support of the poor. He said that only 03 pc of the allocated amount was utilised for stationary and honorarium of staff. He said that officers and employees draw salaries from Social Welfare department and as such there was no big allocation for administrative expenses.