Youth empowerment key to development: PM

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said that the government was committed to empowering the youth of the country as empowering them was the key to ensuring development and prosperity of Pakistan.

He said that the youth of the country were capable enough to transform the country’s fate because, with their hard work and dedication, they could help Pakistan develop at a faster pace, leaving its neighbouring country far behind in terms of economic development and prosperity.

Addressing the launching ceremony of the laptop programme, the prime minister said that this ceremony reminded him of the days when, as the chief minister of Punjab, he distributed hundreds of thousands of laptops among the students on merit.

He said that those laptops helped the students a lot during the Covid-19 pandemic days when they took their classes online while sitting at home and also earned their bread and butter by working as freelancers.

He informed the attendees that as the Punjab CM, he also provided scholarships to the talented youth under the Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF), and the beneficiaries of these programmes was now serving the country in various areas, including health, IT and engineering.

The prime minister maintained that this had been his mission to provide every youngster with a laptop machine to enable them to successfully move forward in their respective areas.

He informed them that apart from the 100,000 laptops approved for the previous financial year, he also got another 100,000 laptops approved for the current fiscal year.

He said that the laptop distribution process would totally be on merit and no influence would be accepted in this regard.

For the youth from rural areas, he said that the government had allocated Rs5 billion to provide agriculture loans, while another Rs5 billion had been allocated for the provision of skill-based training to the youth.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima Khawaja said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in its tenure, had empowered the youth.

She said that since 2011, one million laptops had been distributed among talented students while over Rs100 billion in loans had also been provided to the youth to empower them.

She also said that the prime minister would distribute 100,000 laptops among the students in the days to come.

Minister for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Interior Ataullah Tarar, and Higher Education Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed were also present.