Govt to help poor purchase ration: Imran

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the government will assist families who earn less than Rs 25,000 per month in the purchase of essential commodities and directed his finance and economic team to allocate the amount for the plan in the upcoming budget.

Chairing a meeting on Monday regarding the provision of relief to the underprivileged, the Prime Minister said the poorest-of-poor families would be provided with flour, ghee, pulses, sugar and other essential items.

He said the government was providing a subsidy to provide basic essential commodities through the Utility Stores network so that such people could easily purchase daily-use commodities at affordable prices.

The Premier said the government is committed to ensuring the basic requirements of the low-income segments of society are met and stressed that providing relief to low-income segments of society and is the state’s “foremost responsibility”.

The Prime Minister also ordered deliberations upon the proposals to provide further relief to the underprivileged so that doable proposals could be implemented.

Meanwhile, Khan in a tweet said it was good to see that cabinet decisions to reduce inflation, including subsidy on products through Utility Stores, had started to bear fruit. He said the inflation rate for February showed decline by more than two per cent versus January. “We will continue pursuing measures to bring down inflation & reduce burden on citizens,” the Prime Minister said. His comments came as the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported a decline in the CPI-based monthly inflation month-on-month. It decreased by 1.0 per cent in February 2020 as compared to an increase of 2.0 per cent in the previous month and an increase of 0.9 per cent in February 2019.

Separately, the Prime Minister formally launched the Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship Programme under which 50,000 scholarships would initially be awarded to the deserving students.