The government is launching 'Utility Store Bachat Card' scheme for 6.8 million households of the lowest income people throughout the country on Friday. Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro approved the scheme here on Thursday.
The Prime Minister was informed that the scheme would be launched under the name of 'Utility Store Bachat Card' and these cards would be issued only to the poor families.
The scheme will provide subsidy on five essential food items at a price 42 percent less than the market price through Utility Stores of which the government will bear an additional subsidy of amounting to Rs 3.4 billion The scheme is designed to provide relief on five basic food commodities, which include Atta, ghee/oil, sugar, rice and pulse (Dal Channa).
While appreciating the roadmap of the scheme, the Prime Minister said that this would auger well for the poor people who cannot afford buying essential food items from the open market. He expressed confidence that this scheme would go a long way in benefiting the poor segment of the society and the role of Utility Stores Corporation is very important to provide such facilities to people at their doorsteps.
The scheme would be completed in three phases to provide Bachat Cards to 6.8 million families or 38 million poor people. Initially, this scheme will be launched from Islamabad and subsequently it will be expanded to other parts of the country as well.
The Prime Minister was informed that the scheme would initially cover two million poor families registered with the Bait-ul-Maal while the remaining 4.8 million families would be covered in different phases through incorporating already available data with the provincial governments as well as with the Ministry of Zakat "Zakat Beneficiaries" besides enhancing the existing database.
The Prime Minister called for an early completion of additional data for the remaining population of 4.8 million families so that the scheme could achieve the target of 6.8 million families thus benefiting the poorest of the poor in the country.
He directed all the concerned departments to work closely with each other to help in enhancing database and to ensure inclusions of all those families, which either do not have income source or have meagre level of income. He specifically mentioned the inclusion of widows as well as the senior citizens having no source of income so that this scheme could also benefit all segments of people across the board.
The Prime Minister also directed the Utility Stores Corporation to expand its network to the remote parts of the country. In the meantime, he said, that the targeted population must be facilitated at the earliest.