By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar took to Twitter on Sunday to share data showing how the number of Covid-19 patients on ventilators have gone up over the last 15 days.
He tweeted that Peshawar witnessed a 200 per cent increase in Covid-19 patients struggling for life on ventilators, Multan 200pc, Karachi 148pc, Lahore 114pc, and Islamabad 65pc. He said 70 per cent of ventilators earmarked for Covid-19 patients in Multan and Islamabad are occupied.
Without pointing out opposition parties’ Peshawar public gathering slated for Sunday, he said: “For political leaders to send a message that corona is not a threat is threatening lives.”
The opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has come in for a lot of flak from the government for holding public meetings despite a spike in coronavirus cases since the second wave of the infection started lately.
Earlier Saturday Asad Umar urged the Sindh government should utilise Rs700 billion that has been allocated in the provincial budget for the projects in Karachi.
The federal minister was talking to the media after unveiling a plaque to commemorate the groundbreaking of BRT Common Corridor from Taj Medical Complex to Municipal Park along M.A.Jinnah Road.
Asad Umar said that no practical development work was done in Karachi in the past but now the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government had undertaken work on K-4, Karachi Circular Railway (KCR), cleaning of nullahs, and other projects.
The federal minister told a reporter that around Rs65 billion were distributed among the needy, poor and deserving people in Sindh through the Ehsaas Programme.
Speaking about the Karachi Transformation Plan, he said that good progress has been made on all development projects in Karachi for which the federal government was responsible while fast-paced work was underway on the K-4 project, and two railways projects, the KCR and Freight Corridor from Karachi Port to Pippri.
