Giving a comparison of food commodities in the region, the prime minister said flour rate was Rs 83 per kg in India while Pakistan had half of the world’s average price. Moreover, Daal Moong was being sold at Rs 338 in India against Rs 162 in Pakistan.
Despite that, the government decided to launch the subsidy program in order to avert the burden of inflation from the people, he remarked.
The prime minister particularly appealed the industrialists and businessmen to take special care of labour class and give them a pay raise considering the inflation.
Commenting on the opposition’s criticism against the government, the prime minister committed to bring down prices of food commodities to half if the opposition leaders’ families brought back even half of the money to the country they had looted over last three decades.
According to the details of the subsidy package provided by the PM Office, the federal cabinet had approved the program on Tuesday which would affect 53% of the country’s population.
Under the package, a subsidy of Rs 1,000 a month would be given to each of the 20 million families with a poverty score of less than 39 and an income of Rs 31,500 per month.
Ehsaas has developed a digitally enabled mobile point of sale system in collaboration with National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to serve beneficiaries through a network of Kiryana stores designated by NBP, all over the country.
This system will digitize parts of the retail sector; there will be use of real time data for decision making. This process will help make beneficiaries and store owners more digitally adept.
The participating Kiryana store owners will be required to open bank accounts which will help further increase financial inclusion and settlement payments made through RAAST will help increase scale of digital transactions in Pakistan.
For online registration of beneficiaries, Ehsaas will open a registration portal next week.
In interest of transparency, the registered Kiryana stores and beneficiaries will undergo a rigorous verification process to minimize the incidence of fraud.
The federal government and all participating federating units will share fiscal resources in the ratio of 35/65.
The governments of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan and AJK have already agreed to participate in the programme.
In other federating units, federal share of subsidy worth Rs 350 per month will be given for each eligible household.