-Says Provision of houses to homeless among top priorities
-Govt to start providing direct subsidy to 30 million families from June
By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday said the government, in order to protect the poor people from inflation and price-hike, would initiate a revolutionary programme of providing direct subsidy to 30 million families – around half of the country’s population from June.
He said this while launching here the ‘Koi Bhuka Na Soye’ programme, under which the poor and labour classes would be provided free meal boxes twice a day through mobile trucks at various points of the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The prime minister said through the direct subsidy programme, to be carried out under the umbrella of Ehsaas, subsidy amounts would be directly credited to the accounts of poor people enabling them to buy basic food items like wheat flour, sugar, ghee, pulses etc.
The government, he added, would also bring a similar direct subsidy programme for the farmers to help them in getting fertilizers and other agricultural inputs on subsidized rates. The prime minister said with 70% of work already completed for the direct subsidy programme, progress on the remaining 30% was underway. The prime minister described the ‘Koi Bhuka Na Soye’ programme as the beginning of Pakistan’s transformation into a welfare state.
He appreciated the Ehsaas and Bait-ul-Mal teams for the successful launch of the programme and said the provision of free meals would help the poor, deserving, labourers and daily wagers to save their hard-earned money to fulfill the needs of their children and families.
Imran Khan directed the officials concerned to particularly take care of the self-respect of the poor people benefiting from the government-sponsored facilities of Panaagahs (Shelter Homes), Langars (Free Meals) and Kio Bhuka Na Soye.
He said the mobile trucks or vans carrying food should especially visit the localities of the poor and labourers to ensure that the free meals reach the deserving.
The prime minister said the programme was initially being started in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, which would help the government learn about the issues and problems, and improve it before its extension to other cities.
It was his dream to extend the ‘Koi Bhuka Na Soye’ programme to the whole country and “Insha Allah we will do it”, he added.
Imran Khan said a large number of philanthropists in the country desired to participate in such programmes, and he believed that the success of pilot project in the twin cities would help win their trust to contribute towards its extension across Pakistan. He also mentioned with pride the government’s health card scheme in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Gilgit Baltistan, under which each family was entitled for medical treatment worth Rs one million from any public or private hospital.
The prime minister, in a briefing on the occasion, was informed that after extensive deliberations on different avenues, the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (PBM) initiated the Meals on Wheels programme to tackle the extended demands of Panahgaahs.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection Dr Sania Nishtar said the programme was aimed at providing two time hygienic packed food – lunch and dinner – to the needy individuals through real time mobile kitchens in urban and rural areas of Islamabad. The project would be later scaled up to other areas of the country.
PBM Managing Director Aon Abbas, in his briefing, said at present two Ehsaas food trucks were serving free quality cooked food at various points across the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, including hospitals, bus stations and other public places with utmost dignity. The meals were cooked, stored and distributed from the truck kitchen.
As per estimates, each food truck would feed two meals to around 2,000 people daily, and would target those, who could not reach the Panahgaahs for food. The programme had been designed in a public private partnership mode whereby the PBM would be responsible for the operations of food trucks and Saylani Welfare International Trust would be responsible for the provision of meals.
