At lunch Sharafat Ali, head of advocacy at PILER and Mir Mouledad, assistant librarian, explain the national lottery which awards some tens of thousands of rupees (up to a thousand pounds sterling) to 750 people a month to enable a fresh start in life. I object to the randomness of this. It turns out it is connected to a much bigger project – one of its authors is Kaiser Bengali, a close collaborator with PILER - which distributes smaller sums via local committees. Originally it was planned to help a million families. It’s now 3.2 million and this is set to double. Mouledad is on one of the local committees distributing the funds which come out of indirect taxes. He’s also on the local Zakat committee distributing the 2.5% which is annually levied on bank accounts.
Sharafat tells me about the Ismaili sect, which has built up its wealth through a 10% tithe that is used for the community including its health, welfare and, not least, security, most important given the level of hostility and violence towards non orthodox sects here.
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