A helping hand: Government to start issuing Insaf cards soon

As many as 500,000 people of the province to receive subsidised goods

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government will soon begin issuing Insaf cards to the underprivileged people of the province to provide them with flour and edible oil at subsided rates.

This was told by officials to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak during a meeting at the CM Secretariat on Monday, stated a handout.

Minister for Education Muhammad Atif Khan, Adviser to Chief Minister on Communication & Works (C&W) Akbar Ayub, additional chief secretary, information secretary, the project director for Insaf cards and relevant NADRA officials attended the meeting.



The officials reviewed the progress made in the preparation of Insaf cards and discussed various issues.

The meeting was informed that a total of 743,000 deserving individuals from all over the province were identified to whom these commodities would be provided at subsidised rates.

Insaf cards project director said that the CNICs of 560,000 applicants were found valid to open bank accounts and get the cards.

However, CNICs of the rest were expired and this resulted in the issuance of their Insaf cards going into pending.

Khattak directed NADRA authorities to take measures to renew the expired CNICs of deserving applicants so that the maximum number of deserving people could benefit from the scheme.

He also directed the authorities to ensure the distribution of Insaf cards on the district level so that people could collect them easily.



The chief minister also agreed to a proposal to launch a health insurance scheme for the poor. He asked the relevant authority to work out the proposal and submit a report for consideration.

Also, while presiding over a meeting on the affairs of the education department, Khattak asked C&W department to determine service charges of consultants to restore old and historic buildings of 200 schools of the province.

The K-P government allocated Rs4.6 billion to restore the buildings of such schools. The chief minister also directed C&W department to revise the scheduled rates for their (contractors’) contracts only once a year instead of on a biennial basis.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2015.