Islamabad: The draft for Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance, which was earlier sent from the Pakistan cabinet to the government's top legal brains for vetting and removal of anomalies, has been reformulated. The new draft, which will come before the cabinet for approval soon, contains many flaws and few improvements, Dawn newspaper reported.

It is still not clear when the federal cabinet plans to give its assent to the law, which has been under the government's consideration for several years now. However, the government would have to explain what has been holding it back from promulgating the law for all these years when its representative appears before the Supreme Court on July 25.

At present, Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world where organ trade is not banned by law and has earned the notoriety of being a kidney bazaar. Rough estimates show that the annual turnover of the kidney business here, centred in the country's two most politically powerful cities Rawalpindi and Lahore, is close to Rs 980 million.

The lobby indulging in commercial dealings had been opposing the enforcement of the law, but having realised the futility of opposing it, went all out to extract maximum concessions through the courtesy of their patrons sitting in the echelons of power. Under pressure from this lobby the government revised its draft several times, on each occasion granting more and more relaxation to them.

One of the many controversial clauses inserted in the most recent draft of the ordinance is that in case of non-availability of a related donor, a non-relative could be allowed to donate the required organ for which the donor would be compensated. This permission for compensating the donor, the advocates of altruistic donations believe, is negation of the concept of voluntary donations and legalises the sale of organs.