LAHORE - The scheduled banks all over the country remained closed on Tuesday, the first of Ramazan, for deduction of Zakat, creating an uncertainty for the expats who have sent record remittances of over $11.5 billion. Banking sources said that due to the deduction of around Rs4 billion in shape of Zakat, a huge amount of money in the form of remittances is now on stake which contributes high deposits within the banking system. Meanwhile, thousands of the accountholders, including a number of businessmen and government officials on Monday withdrew millions of rupees to avert Zakat deduction from their accounts. Accountholders said they were not sure of the proper utilisation of the amount deducted from the accounts. That is why they are withdrawing their deposits. They said they did not want to waste their Zakat, as the government departments are not working according to the Islamic tenets and their money deducted as Zakat will not be properly utilised. There was sizable rush in banks of the accountholders seeking instantaneous withdrawal on Tuesday. As zakat deduction is mandatory, majority of accountholders, who did not submit affidavits, withdrew their deposits, creating a liquidity shortage in the banking system. They said that the banks had deducted an amount of over Rs4 billion as Zakat in fiscal year 2010-11, resulting into a huge outflow of deposits from the banking system. They said that other than the zakat, the banks constant investment in the government papers have also caused a huge outflows from the financial system. Banking experts said that after a high jump in gold and silver prices the zakat nisab has been raised by over 100 per cent. This year the government has fixed Rs61,336 as nisab for deduction of Zakat, and all the saving accounts holder having deposits of Rs61,336 will be bound for deduction of 2.5 per cent of Zakat. However it will not be deducted on the current accounts. They said that Zakat deduction is mandatory on a specific amount of a bank account holder in Pakistan and the accountholders who do not want the deduction are asked to submit affidavits. Banking sources said that SBP on July 29 had injected an amount of Rs115 billion into the banking system for providing adequate liquidity to avoid the pressure of withdrawals ahead of Ramazan. They said that central bank conducted reverse repo to inject liquidity into the banking system and offered Rs141 billion against the treasury bills and bonds.