PESHAWAR
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is giving final touches to arrangements and preparation for launching, the proposed Insaf Food Card to assist the deserving families with regard to purchase of essential food commodities and distribution of cards among beneficiaries would be completed by the first week of June this year.
This was told in a meeting held regarding Insaaf Food Card with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair.
Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, Chief Secretary Dr Shahzad Bangash, Principal Secretary to CM Amjad Ali Khan, concerned adminstrative secretaries, Commissioner Peshawar and other relevant senior officials attended the meeting.
The meeting took a detailed review of preparations and arrangements for launching the Insaf Food Card scheme for low income households of the province. The participants were informed that, disbursement process of food cards would be completed by the first week of June whereas data of one million deserving households had been collected for the purpose.
It was added that Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had been signed between provincial food department and Bank of Khyber for execution of Insaf Food Card scheme. The scheme would cost RS 25.5 billion annually while the provincial cabinet had already approved funds to this end. Under the Scheme deserving households would be provided with Rs 2100 per month for purchasing essential food commodities.
A total of 5 million individuals in the province will benefit from the food card scheme which is 12 percent of the total population of the province. The meeting also decided to continue provision of subsidized wheat flour to people, the chief minister agreed in principle to the proposal of provision of 20 Kg wheat flour at Rs. 980.
The meeting also approved a wheat procurement plan for the next financial year. Besides, the meeting reviewed the latest prices of 17 kitchen items in the province. It was informed that during the last one month over 62 thousand shops were inspected, FIRs were lodged against 927 shop owners and 87 shopkeepers were imprisoned. It was added that fines over 10 million were imposed on the violators of relevant food laws.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that Insaaf Food Card as another pro-poor and flagship initiative of the incumbent government and said that it was a step towards realization of Imran Khan’s vision of welfare state.
He added that the PTI government was committed to provide relief to the public and all available resources would be utilized for the purpose. Mahmood Khan said that the government was working on another important scheme “Education Card” and very soon it would be launched.
