Strategy being devised to help the needy: Naveed Qamar

ISLAMABAD : Federal Minister for Finance, Syed Naveed Qamar here on Friday chaired an Inter-Ministerial Committee meeting to devise a comprehensive strategy for providing immediate relief to the needy families. Earlier the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, in its meeting held on May 6, had decided to constitute a Ministerial Committee comprising ministers for Finance and Revenue, Industries and Production, Social Welfare and Special Education, organizations of Bait-ul-Mall and NADRA.
The committee has been tasked to devise a strategy for immediate relief to the needy household families and finalize scheme for the grant of targeted subsidy on essential food items to them, said a press release by Finance Division.
The committee will submit its recommendations to ECC within two weeks while the relevant minister would monitor and oversee the implementation of scheme to be launched by the Government of Pakistan, it added.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee during its first meeting deliberated on a scheme for provision of targeted subsidy on essential food items for the needy families.
The Committee earlier recommended NADRA to carry out detailed sample analysis of their data about unemployed, illiterate and widows for assessing number of deserving persons (needy household families), besides using existing data available with Provincial Education Department which could also be availed for identification of eligible beneficiaries.
The Finance Minister assured that government would do its best to reach a bulk of needy population on the basis of a transparently available data-based criteria with NADRA, Bait-ul-Maal and other allied agencies.
The Committee held that the criteria to support needy people be based on the CNIC-supported national data.
Once the data-base modalities are finalized, a cash subsidy of Rs. 1000 per month would be disbursed on quarterly basis to an agreed list of eligible needy households nationwide through the forum of Union Councils.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee decided to consult banks and Post Offices to lend support in financial disbursement of government’s relief package to needy households through devising a credible mechanism once disbursement proposals are finalized by stakeholders.
The minister of finance, thereafter, would create fiscal space in the national budget and put it up to the government for approval. The Meeting was attended by Special Assistants to PM on Finance and Social Sector Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar and Ms. Shahnaz Wazir Ali along with other senior officers of Ministries of Industries, Finance and NADRA.