In a significant move, the federal government said on Saturday it is planning to introduce uniform prayer timings for all religious sects across the country.Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf told The Express Tribune that he will get in touch with chief ministers of all the four provinces to introduce “Nizam-e-Salat”.Elaborating the government’s decision, the minister said that the provincial governments will notify a local timetable, at least at the district level in their respective provinces, for the prayer timings.These timetables will be formulated according to the local time-zones across Pakistan.In May 2015, the federal government introduced the system for the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). However, the decision has hardly been implemented in spirit.The minister stressed that the government had consulted the met office and religious leaders of Ahle Hadith, Hanafi (both Deobandi and Barelvi) and Ahle Tashee— before notifying uniform prayer timings for the ICT.The same pattern will be adopted for a countrywide plan in order to promote uniformity and unity, he said.Implementing ‘Nizam-e-Salat’, Yousaf said, will be the responsibility of the provincial authorities and his ministry has so far been receiving a positive response from them in this connection.In response to a query he said that 80 per cent of the mosques in the ICT were observing the Nizam-e-Salat and he wants that the same model in implemented in all major cities and districts of the country.He did not set a deadline to implement uniform prayer timings but said this is the priority of the government.He added that a decision to adopt uniform sermons for Friday’s prayers would be taken sometime later.Sources in the religious ministry informed that the federal government has so far been unsuccessful to implement uniform prayer timings in ICT despite its claims.There are around 700 mosques in the capital territory and the managements of a fewer mosques are implementing the calendar of uniform prayer timings.Published in The Express Tribune, January 8, 2017.