APTMA allocates Rs 20 million for IDPs

The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) had allocated Rs 20 million for the relief funding of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the first consignment left for the affectees on Friday afternoon. The consignment included daily-use items, clothes, books and other essential commodities for the IDPs. Akber Sheikh, Chairman APTMA Punjab, said that the association had allocated Rs 10 million, while asking individual members to contribute another Rs 10 million for the noble cause.
As many as Rs 7 million had already been contributed by individual members of the APTMA, with the rest on the way, to help the IDPs, through their association. The Central Chairman APTMA, Tariq Mehmood, was also present on the occasion. Mehmood said no one, from among the members, was ready to pay cash and everyone preferred to pool their resources and help the IDPs through the APTMA.
"Due diligence was made before the consignment was dispatched to the affected areas," he said, adding: "the Chairman, APTMA, Punjab Akber Sh himself travelled to the affected areas to examine the situation on the ground before asking members to donate for the IDPs." He said that the APTMA had adopted a camp of 2000 IDPs at an under-construction hospital near Takht Bai, being run by a private sector NGO.
He said that the monthly need of this camp ranged between one to Rs 1.5 million and that the APTMA had pledged providing the provisions for the camp for the next three months. Further, he said, the APTMA would also extend help in the rehabilitation of IDPs ahead. According to him, the APTMA had also given the assurance of supplying fabric to the IDP's camps to facilitate them in sewing clothes for themselves.
Besides, he said, that individual textile millers had also dispatched stitched clothes to the IDPs. He said that the APTMA had also planned to dispatch 10,000 suits for the IDPs, 5000 each for men and women, in a week's time, to facilitate the IDPs further.
Similarly, the Chairman APTMA said that many textile millers were also looking after the IDPs settled in Karachi. He said that the APTMA had identified the provisions and selected the private sector NGO camps, to adopt. He said that the real test of philanthropists would start at the time of rehabilitation and the APTMA was ready to help them out at that stage as well.