Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday addressed the nation and announced “the country’s biggest ever” subsidy package worth Rs120 billion, providing 30 percent discount on ghee, flour and pulses to support 130 million people for ebbing away the impact of inflation from them.
The prime minister, in his televised address to the nation, said that 20 million families would benefit from the subsidy package to be funded jointly by the federal and provincial governments.
Under the package, the beneficiaries would avail a 30 percent discount on ghee, flour and pulses for next six months.
He said that the package is apart from the ongoing different programmes under the Ehsaas Initiative worth Rs260 billion, affecting 120 million families.
He said that under the package, interest-free loans of up to Rs500,000 will be provided to citizens to start businesses and a similar amount of loan will also be provided to farmers.
He said that the government has asked the construction sector to increase the salaries of workers. “Under the package, four million families will be able to build houses without interest,” he said, adding that Rs1,400 billion have been allocated for the Kamyab Pakistan Programme (KPP) with the aim to provide opportunities to the deserving and uplift 3.7 million households across the country.
He also said that a health-insurance programme will be introduced in Punjab from December.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar said, “Ehsaas and the National Bank of Pakistan have developed a technology-based targeted subsidy disbursal programme. The system will digitise parts of the retail sector and there will be use of real time data for decision making. The use of a digital platform in this programme will help us track utilisation of subsidy by each beneficiary at product and geography levels, which will provide much needed transparency in the process.
This process will help make beneficiaries and store owners more digitally adept. The participating store owners will be required to open bank accounts, which will help increase financial inclusion, and settlement payments made through Raast will help increase scale of digital transactions in Pakistan.”
Talking about assistance from foreign countries, the premier thanked China and Saudi Arabia for financially assisting Pakistan.
He also talked about coronavirus situation across the world and said that, unlike other countries, the Pakistani government made strategic decisions related to the imposition of lockdowns and saved factories from closing down, besides ensuring continuation of agricultural activities.
“[Due to the government’s policies], cotton production increased by 81 percent, rice 13.6 percent, corn 8 percent, sugarcane 22 percent, and wheat 8 percent., while record-breaking motorcycle and tractor sales were witnessed in the country. Farmers are using more urea, indicating that the conditions are getting better. When farmers are happy, the production increases and benefits the country,” he said.
“Our policies prevented the economy from collapsing. The World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and the World Economic Forum all praised our policies amid the pandemic. Yes, we are facing inflation in the country but you [media outlets] should also look at what the government is doing to alleviate the situation. Due to factors, which are not in the hands of the government, petrol prices will have to be increased further. If we do not increase the price of petrol, the deficit will increase. The global oil prices have risen to 100 percent, while the price of petrol in India is Rs250 per litre. Oil and ghee prices have doubled worldwide, and since we import these items, what can we do about the prices?”
