Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday said the PML-N government under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had taken historic measures for the empowerment of women and protection of their rights including inheritance rights. Speaking at a ceremony held at the Aiwan-e-Iqbal in connection with International Women's Day, Shahbaz mentioned the steps taken by the government to empower the women and highlighted the importance of women's rights.
Citing Islamic teachings and examples from the life of Holy Prophet (PBUH), he said, "Islam has given unprecedented rights to the women." He invited three girl students to the stage from 'Daanish School Hasilpur' who had won an international competition held in the US and said those girl students were the real face of Pakistan. He admired their intellect and competence. He also invited to the stage Dr Khudeja who had taken financial support from the Punjab Education Endowment Fund for the medical studies.
Shahbaz criticised those who called the travelling facility of 'Metro Bus Project' as "Jangla Service" and said students, teachers, labourers, widows, nurses and doctors commuted by that service and that mega transport facility of the common man was criticised baselessly. "We introduced merit based and transparent system, but everything has not been corrected so far and we need to work hard and hard to move forward," he said.
Shahbaz said when the PML-N came to power in 2008, the foundation of the biggest and unique education fund was laid with the budget of Rs 2 billion and now the volume of the Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF) had swelled to Rs 20 billion and 130,000 girl and boy students from poor families were benefitting from that fund. He said from the income of the PEEF scholarships worth Rs 11 billion had been distributed and main feature of that fund was that students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh, FATA, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan were also benefiting from that fund. He said PM Health Insurance Scheme was operating in four districts of Punjab and its scope would be expanded to the whole province and the Punjab government would spend Rs 12 billion on it.
He said the state was responsible for providing education to the youth, but unfortunately politicians, upper-class class and powerful class of the country did not allow changing the fate of the country and plundered resources.
He said "the prime minister, Imran Khan, all politicians, traders and judges should make themselves duty bound that they will play their role in providing same education as they provide to their children and this is the only way forward." He said national wealth had been plundered mercilessly during the last 70 years and the nation could not make progress without transparency accountability. He said prime minister, chief ministers, ministers, judges, generals, traders, politicians, and all of us should have to implement the transparent system of accountability upon ourselves and this is the only way forward for the nation.
In Punjab, he claimed there was merit, merit and only merit and that was the vision of Quaid-e-Azam. He said the Punjab government decided to hold the final of the PSL despite reservations and PSL final was held on March 5, at Qaddafi stadium successfully which was a slap on the face of opponents of Pakistan and enemies of peace. "We are moving forward to resolve problems and can sacrifice our lives for the motherland."
Provincial Ministers Begum Zakia Shahnawaz, Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, Hameeda Waheed ud Din, Naghma Mushtaq, Women Parliamentarians, Women Vice Chancellors, Principals, Teachers and the women belonging to fields of life attended the ceremony.