Prime Minister Imran Khan has launched Ehsaas initiatives including Ehsaas Rashaan portal, Ehsaas Langar, Panagah apps, and PM Corona Relief Fund website to ensure better coordination among the civil society and the government for the COVID-19 related relief activities.
These initiatives are aimed at facilitating and empowering donors, welfare organizations, and philanthropists by enabling them to play a more coordinated role with the government in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing the participants, the prime minister said the government is determined to ensure transparency in every rupee donated for the support of COVID 19-hit segments of society. He said the government is providing confidence to donors about the transparency of their donations with the launch of related apps and websites. Upon the newly launched PM website, he said they will publish lists of all beneficiaries.
The Ehsaas program is also firmly rooted in transparency, he maintained. The prime minister also commended efforts of Dr. Sania Nishtar and her team for the success of the Ehsaas cash program under which cash was transferred in a transparent and efficient way. The cash program provided much-needed relief to the deserving people in hard times, he added.
He also expressed his satisfaction that the Ehsaas web portal also proved successful in financially supporting those who lost their jobs during the pandemic. About the launch of the PM Corona Relief Fund website, he said it contains complete information and will facilitate donors in reaching the deserving people directly.
He said that due to lockdown, the whole world witnessed an unprecedented situation and even in the United States people waited in long queues to get food whereas in Italy people had been facing hardships in getting food. The prime minister said if the provinces had asked him for lockdown options, he will have never endorsed them because their situation is different when compared with Wuhan, China.
Sharing his experience during his recent visit to Sindh, the prime minister said in Larkana alone, about 20 percent of the affectees are vendors who were also shut down.
The decisions were taken in panic due to the pandemic, he said and cited a situation where Indian government enforced a complete lockdown with the statistics showing that another 34 percent of its population was pushed under the poverty line.
The prime minister further said that due to lockdown, the service sector in the country suffered badly including hotels and marriage halls.
The prime minister reiterated his resolve to transform the country on the model of world’s pioneer welfare Madina state in which, for the first time, the focus was to uplift the conditions of the neglected and downtrodden.
About Panagah, he said, the number of shelter homes will be incrementally increased in the future to accommodate a large number of deserving people.
The prime minister reiterated that it is shameful to watch the laborers and the workforce who used to come to cities for earning their livelihood and had to spend nights in the open or on roads as they could not afford accommodation.
“The idea for setting up Panagah was to facilitate these people. I have also asked ministers to visit these areas and inquire about the conditions of people staying there,” he added.
The prime minister while stressing upon the smart lockdown said that they are being faced with the challenge to save the lives of the vulnerable, old, and those suffering from chronic diseases and maintained that volunteers of the tiger force will be helpful in this regard.
The prime minister also eulogized the sincere passion of the nation for making donations for a good cause and cited the construction of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital (SKMH). He said for the last 30 years, he had been raising funds for the noble cause and had a unique experience with the donations made by the common people. The country ranked among the topmost countries where the people had been making huge donations, he added.
About the PM COVID Relief Fund, he said the small donations dominated the total sum collected so far.
These people, the prime minister said, had a great passion for a noble cause due to their firm belief in Allah and the Day of Judgment. He said SKMH is a miracle where 75 percent of patients in the facility are being provided free treatment. Most of the developed countries can’t even think about affording it.
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