Lahore district admin has no mechanism to help needy

LAHORE: City’s district administration has failed to device a proper mechanism for reaching out to the deserving citizens waiting for financial aid as a large number of deserving citizens were witnessed running pillar-to-post to get the help announced by the Punjab government.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the Punjab government launched a mobile application named Insaf Imdad to distribute Rs10 billion among 2.5 million needy families in shape of Rs4,000 each family.

The chief minister assured that the Punjab government had taken unprecedented steps for dealing with Coronavirus and the impecunious families would not be left alone. But in reality, the district government Lahore has done no homework in this regard as many citizens who sent their details on government’s portal received an answer that they should contact their respective district government. And when those people contacted their Assistant Commissioners concerned they received a similar answer every day that AC was in field so please come tomorrow.

A senior official seeking anonymity said that all applications of financial aid were being received online and after the verification the money would also be transferred online. He revealed that those who were getting SMS directing them to contact their respective district governments were not considered eligible and rejected by the system. He said that the government should have sent rejection messages to them instead of the message to contact district government.

Amir Mirza, a resident of Dubai Town, said that in response to his online application he received a message to contact respective district government, he said on CNIC his address was of Khanewal but he was living in Lahore for the past 20 years and can’t go to Khanewal. He said he went to the office of AC Raiwind where staff of AC told him that AC was busy in Corona inspections so he should come tomorrow.

He said next day he again went there and got the similar response. Similar cases were witnessed in various city localities where citizens got same message and were found running from pillar-to-post to reach the official concerned so that they could get the financial aid.

Another office of city administration said it was very simple to apply for Punjab Insaf Imdad through SMS, simply open the write message and put your details in this order after adding space in each entry: Imdad, CNIC Number, Mobile Number, Name and send your details in an SMS to 8070.

He said that the persons who cannot apply for Insaf Imdad Package are following; all government servants, retired persons and semi-government employees, landowners, a person who benefits from any other programme/scheme, whose utility bills are not more than Rs10,000 monthly, owner of any kind of vehicle except a motorcycle, rickshaw & Chingchi), and all above who are presently living in Punjab but they have CNIC of any other province, aren’t eligible to get any benefit from the Punjab government Insaf Imdad financial aid programme.

Spokesperson for district administration said that Social Welfare Department was executing this project while a team of district administration was assisting every social welfare officer for verification of applicants. He said citizens can contact social welfare officer of Lahore to get status of their applications for financial aid.