Sindh govt indifferent to people’s issues: Fawad

Flays the provincial government for doing nothing for the welfare of people

ISLAMABAD:

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Thursday that Sindh was being ruled by a government that "had nothing to do with the welfare of the people".

 Addressing a press conference along with Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam, the federal minister said that the policies of the Sindh government were badly hurting the people of the province.

The minister said that flour and sugar prices were the highest in Sindh as compared with the rest of the country and the people of Sindh were deprived of health cards and ration programs, adding that the people of Sindh were deprived of this facility due to the "anti-people policies" of the PPP government.

The public representatives of Sindh including MNAs and MPAs should ask their chief minister for which reason he was taking revenge from the people of the province, he added.

"Flour is being sold at Rs1100 per 20 kg bag in the whole country except Sindh, as people of Karachi and Sindh were forced to purchase it at Rs1460 per bag. The price of sugar across the country is Rs90 per kg, but in Sindh, it is being sold between Rs97 and Rs100," he noted.

'PTI govt directing the country towards right direction'

He said that Transparency International's post-Covid-19 survey was encouraging because, for the first time, there was no evidence of corruption committed by the political government.

Fawad said that the people of Pakistan had a government after a long time which was not accused of any type of corruption. He said that even the opponents of the Prime Minister in Pakistan believed in his uprightness.

"Trust in political government is being restored today, 89 per cent people have expressed confidence in the performance and initiatives of the government after outbreak of the coronavirus which was a big achievement," Fawad said.

He said there were very few examples in the world that a country's economy was developing at 5 per cent per year after the pandemic.  "Our economic growth figures are also being acknowledged by the IMF, and there is a likelihood that Pakistan will go beyond 5 per cent growth rate," he said.

The agriculture sector due to the policies of the government earned about Rs400 billion additional amount last year, he said, adding farmers earned Rs118 billion in wheat, Rs138 billion in cotton, Rs46 billion in rice and Rs3 billion in maize and Rs96 billion in sugarcane.

The minister said that demands for tractors, vehicles, agricultural equipment and urea fertilizer increased due to surplus income in the agriculture sector.

The price of urea fertilizer in Pakistan was Rs1700, whereas its price in the international market had crossed the Rs10,000 mark, he said.

The minister said that a truck loaded with urea fertiliser was sent abroad, it would earn Rs8 million.

Fawad said that Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday announced the largest social protection programme in Pakistan's history to control the impact of inflation on poor segments of the society.

He said that under the social protection program people earning less than Rs50,000 would get a 30 per cent discount on flour, pulses and ghee purchase.

The minister said that beneficiaries of this programme would get flour at a lower price than the price of 2018.

Every citizen of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab would get treatment facility up to Rs1 million under Health Insaf Card, Chaudhry Fawad said.

This facility would soon also be provided to the people of Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, he added.

There was no precedent in the world for such a program, people in the UK had to pay a premium for the facility of treatment in the National Health Services, he said. He said that the Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) will be used along with a health card for treatment in any government hospital free of cost.

The minister said that Prime Minister Imran Khan's vision was to provide direct assistance to the poor, instead of giving subsidies on the commodities which were availed by all.

About the opposition, he said that it was fragmented and had no agenda to serve the masses. He said that the opposition was like a house of cards and if it was not disintegrated by March 23, only then it might hold a long march.

‘Govt committed to curbing extremism’

Earlier in the day, the information minister said the government was committed to curbing extremism by allowing active and increased participation of youth in sports activities.

Addressing the concluding ceremony of inter universities final competitions in various sports under Kamyab Jawan Talent Hunt's drive, he said the promotion of sports was crucial to channelize negative energies of the youth into positive ones so that the scourge of extremism could be stamped out.

It was also imperative so that the country's youth could not be influenced by extremist elements and could bring a good name to Pakistan by representing it at the international level sports activities, he added.