12m families to receive Rs12,000 each: Disbursement to begin at 17,000 points today

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the biggest challenge for the government after the lockdown has been how to provide relief to the vulnerable. He said that disbursement of financial assistance of Rs12,000 each to 12 million families would start from today (Thursday) at 17,000 points across the country.

Speaking at state-owned television network, the prime minister said that there would be no political interference; however, there might be some difficulties because never in the country's history has such a big programme started.

He stated that the volunteer 'tiger force' would be assigned responsibilities to identify the deserving families in their areas, which would qualify for the amount after meeting the scrutiny process. The government would carry out disbursement of Rs144 billion under the programme and the donations collected in the PM Corona Fund would also be diverted to provide relief to poor families, he said, and added "I want all the MNAs, MPAs to participate in it, because actual politics is social work." The government has been exclusively focusing on ways to protect the people from the coronavirus and efforts were being made to ensure provision of PPEs to those on the frontline. The prime minister, while candidly warning the public that the coronavirus was spreading and the situation would worsen further, asked the people to follow the precautionary measures as this was the only way to protect yourself and the country from the grave threat. The disease would spread rapidly at public gatherings, and so far, statistics in Pakistan suggest that one person could become a casualty in every 100 cases.

It was noticed that people in many areas are not taking this seriously, which could be disastrous as by the end of April as the number of cases would be so much that hospitals may not be able to cater to the patients, he expressed his fear.

So there is a need that people should strictly follow the precautionary measures, so that the situation did not get worse.

The prime minister said that the lockdown decision was taken three weeks ago, and the lockdown in Pakistan was different from other countries because over 50 million people are living below or just above the poverty line, so there is a need to take into account this fact.

The lockdown has impacted daily wagers and the government has tried to balance the situation.

We have decided to allow the people linked to the agriculture sector to continue working and subsequent to news that daily life of wagers in cities (where actual lockdown is enforced) is getting worse, decision has been taken to allow construction sector to operate from April 14.

The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), which is operating under Federal Minister Asad Umar, is assessing the situation on a daily basis.

Asad Umar, Minister for Planning and Development, stated that those people who had gone abroad or those on work visa wanted to return on the one hand, while on the other hand there was this coronavirus challenge.

He said that the good news was that there was consensus in the NCC meeting that people stranded abroad would be brought home after putting in place a system of testing, so that coronavirus should not spread.

By next week people would start arriving at other airports as well, Umar added.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Usman Dar said that people from all the provinces, the GB and the AJK had applied to become part of the 'tiger force' and so far 0.5 million from Punjab, 0.1 million from Sindh, 90,000 from KP and 10,000 from Balochistan had applied for becoming part of the tiger force.

There would be three tiers, elected members - National Assembly, Provincial Assembly and UC level would be involved in identifying the people along with the volunteers.

He added that members of all the political parties would be part of the programme and around 10,000 doctors had expressed the desire to become part of the 'tiger force'.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Dr Sania Nishtar stated that disbursement to 12 million families under the government relief package would be through a digital and transparent system as directed by the prime minister.

A level-playing field and participation of the provinces was ensured for disbursement of assistance to the people under a uniform system, she said, adding that all the federating units were part of the programme.

Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Lt Gen Muhammad Afzal said that after March 13, some provinces submitted to them in writing about their requirements of medical equipments and the federal government supplied to all the provinces more than their requests.

Punjab was provided equipments for 18,000 people working in hospitals against the demand of 6,000 and even though there was no written demand by Sindh, the NDMA provided equipments for 15,000 people against the requirement of 9,000. Similarly KP, GB and AJK were provided more than their demand.

More testing kits were also arriving in the country and would be provided to the provinces, he added.