Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has demanded that the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) impose tighter restrictions to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus, adding that the provincial government would take its own steps to do so if necessary.
“I reminded him (Prime Minister Imran) that one year ago, the Sindh government had taken the initiative for which we had to listen to a lot [of criticism]. If it was such a bad idea, why did the other three provinces and Centre follow it?” he asked during the inauguration ceremony of the Institute of Animal Health in Korangi, Karachi.
The provincial minister pointed out that while Pakistan was “saved” from a Covid-19 wave as bad as India’s wave last year as it had restricted domestic travel through airplanes and trains.
In this regard, Murad demanded the NCOC impose a two-week ban on inter-city transport, otherwise “we will take decisions ourselves”.
He pointed out that India had not imposed a curfew in time and had told everyone to return to their home villages, and as a result, the people “infected each other and their villages”.
However, Pakistan was saved from a similar situation because it shut down domestic travel, he maintained.
The chief minister said that he gave the same recommendation to the NCOC this time as well, clarifying that his suggestion was not rejected.
“The NCOC said it will consider it.”
He also stated that the vaccination campaign needs to be made more aggressive, as Pakistan ” is among the bottom-most in terms of vaccination in the region”.
“Bangladesh, India, even Afghanistan — all are ahead of us,” he said on the occasion.
Murad said that there were areas in the country that had a positivity rate of 25 per cent while in other areas, the positivity rate was lower than 1 per cent. “If people gather [in areas with low positivity rates], it will not spread as much,” he added.
Separately, a decision was taken in the cabinet meeting held here under the chairmanship of Murad at CM House wherein the Sindh government, under pro-poor economic revival package, has decided to launch Chief Minister Self-employment Scheme to advance interest-free small loans to the people in an attempt to combat the economic downturn incurred by coronavirus.
The chief minister – during a meeting attended by all the provincial ministers, advisors, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah and concerned secretaries – said that the Covid-19 situation had turned a large number of people either unemployed or under-employed.
“This is the time to introduce a pro-poor economic package under which interest-free small loans may be offered to the people to start their small business or strengthen their ongoing business activities,” he said and added he could spare Rs2 billion during the current financial year to start with.
The cabinet members after thorough discussions and deliberations approved the proposal and named it “Chief Minister Self-employment Scheme”. They unanimously voiced to enhance its budgetary allocations so that a large number of populations could take benefit from it.
The chief minister said that a mechanism entitlement of loan, method of disbursement, mode of recovery was needed to be evolved. He constituted a committee under P&D Chairman Mohammad Waseem, with the finance secretary and the law secretary as its members to work out details for the programme.
The meeting was told that an NGO Akhwat Islamic Microfinance (AIM) was advancing interest-free loans to poor people so that they could start their small businesses. Their recovery rate was 100 per cent.
The NGO was called, and its representative gave a detailed briefing to the cabinet and they tasked the P&D chairman to meet with them and share their model with the cabinet in its next meeting to be held before the holy month of Ramzan.
