Imran cites helping downtrodden as biggest challenge

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday said the biggest challenge was to help the downtrodden who were badly affected by the coronavirus crisis.

That’s why, he added, the government had kept the agriculture sector open and the construction industry will be opened in the coming days to generate economic activities and employment.  

He was addressing a ceremony in connection with the Prime Minister’s Coronavirus Relief Fund at Governor House after visiting various sections of the 1,000-bed field hospital established at Expo Centre, Lahore, where he was briefed on the working of the facility.

Mentioning that they will now focus on collecting money from public, Imran said he had a 30-year experience of collecting charity and the people made donations only when they had trust.

He said the government had collected and compiled data of the deserving people and those giving donations would be connected with them through a Facebook page with the target of giving cash to the poor and daily wagers while removing duplication.

Imran said the funds would be utilised with complete transparency just like the Shaukat Khanum Hospital.

The prime minister said around 50 to 60 million people were already below the poverty line and the coronavirus pandemic had multiplied their miseries.

He stressed the need for studying the state of Medina which, he said, was a model welfare state.

Imran said Pakistan could not get respect in the comity of nations because of moving away the original philosophy of Iqbal.