PPP Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo terms Punjab Govt’s Ramazan package inadequate

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Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, President Pakistan People’s Party Punjab, has described the Ramzan Package of Punjab Chief Minister as insufficient for providing relief to the poor people during the holy month of Ramzan.

In a statement issued from here on Monday, he said that the subsidy should be targeted and not to all and sundry adding provision of indiscriminate subsidy would only deny benefits to the needy who deserved it the most.

He called upon the provincial government that to ensure the targeted subsidy reach to the deserving the list prepared under the auspices of Benazir Income Support Programme should be used, which had been judged by third party as credible.

He also suggested that the number of items for giving subsidy should be minimum, which were strictly under the use of poor people consisting their staple food. It will increase the quantum of subsidy resultantly on such items thus directly benefitting the poor people at a satisfactory level.

He observed that the inclusion of hundred of items in the list would proportionately deprive the impoverished people of the society from the relief that was critical for ensuring the food security during the holy month of Ramzan. He criticized the preparation of long list of items for subsidy presumably to oblige the cronies who would be supplying such items to the market on behalf of the government as contractors. The chipping of the middle man will thus probably get the major chunk through the connivance of the government functionaries, he maintained.

He added that the pilferage of the subsidized items would be another curse as most of the stock was likely to end up in the open market and the traders and favorites would be stuffing their pockets with the tax payer’s money.