Opening of industries, businesses: Punjab presenting recommendations to federal government: CM

Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar said on Saturday that the provincial government is presenting its recommendations to the federal government for relaxing the lockdown for industries and businesses, which will be decided in the meeting of the National Coordination Committee.

"We have requested the federal government that construction-related industries including building and road sector should be allowed to work while it has also been recommended to open the feeding industry related to the export sector," the CM said, adding: "A request has also been made to open power looms and all such factories, which have their own labour colonies inside their premises; it has also been recommended to open the iron and steel industry as well as the home appliances industry."

While addressing a news conference, here Saturday, the CM said that recommendations have also been submitted to the federal government for opening the markets and bazaars on different days by dividing them into zones throughout the province. This decision will be taken with the consultation of district administration, trader's unions, chambers of commerce and industry and other stakeholders, he added.

Announcing 'smart sampling' from six districts including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala, Gujrat and Faisalabad, he said corona tests will be conducted of workers of media houses, officials of law enforcement agencies, employees in the offices of administrative officers, health workers, TB and HIV patients, pregnant women in the hospitals and the prisoners of jails. He said that sampling at a larger scale will help the government to review the spread of coronavirus in the community. In the IInd-Phase, under random sampling, samples would be collected in census block, he added.

Usman Buzdar said that eight BSL-III labs have been made functional in Punjab at a cost of Rs620 million, now six thousand corona tests could be conducted on daily basis from today. Last day Punjab took 3700 tests. He said there is no shortage of corona testing kits, PPEs and beds in Punjab.

The CM said that daily thousands of Pakistanis are coming back from abroad through different flights and they have been properly looked after in hotels and other quarantine centres according to SOPs.

He said that quarantine will be allowed at homes as well after implementing the SOPs and recommendation has been presented to federal government in this regard.

The CM said so far there are 6850 confirmed corona patients in Punjab, whereas 115 people have lost their lives due to this pandemic. Approximately 90 thousand corona tests have been conducted, so far and it is a matter of satisfaction that 2206 people have recovered and gone back to their homes. He added that 90-percent of people from devotees and Tableeghi jamaat who were kept in quarantine have also gone back to their homes after complete recovery.

Under Ehaas Kafalat Programme, he said that Rs34 billion have so far been distributed among 2.8 million families and the process of extending assistance is still underway. He said that under Insaaf Imad package financial assistance of Rs12000 per family will be distributed among 2.5 million families from next week. Moreover, under Ramazan package financial assistance of Rs3000 per family will be given away to one million destitute families, he added.

Moreover, a video link meeting of cabinet committee constituted to deal with corona pandemic was held under the chair of Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar.

The meeting reviewed the government initiatives to prevent from coronavirus pandemic. It also reviewed the facilities being provided to coronavirus affected persons.