The Punjab government has decided to issue “Debit Cards” to 26 lakh poorest of the poor families this year so that they could be provided relief for meeting their food requirements through Direct Cash Subsidy Programme worth of Rs. 15 billion 90 crore and 54 lakh. In the first phase, 12 lakh beneficiaries of Pakistan Income Support Programme (PISP) belonging to the province of Punjab will be issued “Debit Cards” instead of “Smart Cards” after due scrutiny within a month.
This was decided in the meeting of Cabinet Committee on “Direct Cash Subsidy Programme headed by the Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan which evolved a mechanism for issuing cards to implement this programme for lessening the burden of increasing price-hike during the last one year. Provincial Ministers Bilal Yasin, Abdul Waheed Chaudhary and Ms. Hameeda Waheed ud Din, members Punjab Assembly Dr. Ayesha Ghaus and Mian Muhammad Rafiq, Vice Chancellor IT University Dr. Omer Saif, Secretary PISP Haseeb Athar, DG Abdul Rehman Abid, Director General Projects of NADRA, Gohar Ahmed Khan, Secretary Food Punjab Muhammad Aslam Kamboh and Secretary Information & Culture Punjab Momin Agha attended the meeting besides other specialists of this specific field.
Chairman Cabinet Committee Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan directed that those beneficiaries who might be excluded from the data should be provided a chance of filing an appeal before their relevant tehsil office for correction and inclusion of their names specially those who possess any disabled person in their family, any old person of more than 65 years of age, minimally four kids beneath the age of 12 years or the beneficiary owns a residence having an area of less than three marlas. This process will be completed across the board within the next month, the Minister added.
The meeting also finalized the roadmap of disbursement of remaining 14 lakh new beneficiaries from Punjab in the second phase of the Direct Cash Subsidy Programme. It was decided in the meeting that a coordination committee headed by the Chief Secretary Punjab will collaborate with PISP to reconcile the matters relating to PISP’s devolution to the province after promulgation of 18th amendment in the constitution of Pakistan. The meeting also constituted another special committee comprising of Dr. Ayesha Ghaus MPA, Muhammad Aslam Kamboh, Secretary Food Punjab and Capt. Retd. Muhammad Usman Younas, Director Food Punjab to sit with the PISP team and workout the solutions pertaining to the reservations about case management and complaint processing besides determining the new criteria for beneficiaries of the Direct Cash Subsidy Programme launched by the Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.