PA members, officers to donate one-month salary to Corona Fund

LAHORE : All the Punjab Assembly members, including the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, and grade 16 to grade 22 officers of the Assembly Secretary will deposit their one-month salary it

Punjab Government Corona Emergency Fund.

This was decided in a between PA Speaker Chudhary Parvaiz Elahi and Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar here on Saturday.

The decision was taken after the PA Speaker held consultations with the parliamentary leaders of Tehrik-e-Insaaf, N-League, Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League, Rah-e-Haq Pakistan and independent candidates and heads of parliamentary committees about depositing the salary to the Fund.

In the meeting, consultation took place regard prevailing political situation with particular reference to the measures taken in Punjab for protection against coronavirus.

All parliamentary parties fully appreciated the decision of PA Speaker Parvaiz Elahi and expressed willingness to deposit their one-month salary each to the Fund.

The Speaker held consultations with N-League's Malik Nadeem Kamran, Chaudhry Iqbal Gujjar, Rana Muhammad Iqbal, Khawaja Salman Rafique, Samiullah Khan, Atta Tara, PPP's Syed Hassan Murtaza, Raah-e-Haq Pakistan's Muhammad Moawiya and others.

Chuadhry Parvez Elahi said Punjab was facing great danger of the contagious disease in the prevailing situation. He it could be overcome by adopting preventive measures. He said there was a dire need for fighting coronavirus keeping politics aside. Pervaiz Elahi said that alongside all the possible preventive measures being taken by the federal and provincial governments to check and control coronavirus, there was also a need for full-fledged awareness campaign among the masses at large.

contingency plans: Punjab Chief Secretary Major (R) Azam Suleman Khan Saturday ordered all provincial departments to prepare their contingency plans against the coronavirus and submit a report in this regard within two days.

He issued these directions while presiding over a meeting at camp office that was attended by all administrative secretaries through video link in accordance with the government instructions. The Chief Secretary asked the Services and General Administration Department to prepare a list of retired officers so that they could be engaged as volunteers in case of emergency. The meeting decided that to overcome staff shortage 50 officers would be attached with divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners temporarily. The Chief Secretary directed that departments other than health, home, industries, food and agriculture, must submit lists of their officers and officials by tonight so as to they could be assigned duties, if needed. He mentioned that the essential services departments could call all their staff on duty. He also issued instructions to the Food Department to update its stocks position on a daily basis. He said that women government employees whose children were in daycare centres had been exempted from attendance in their offices. He also ordered the officers to ensure uninterrupted supply of food and daily-use items to people to avoid shortage of any commodity.