The ruling Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) celebrated its 25th founding day on Sunday with Prime Minister Imran Khan recalling achievements of the party and announcing plans that his government has for welfare of the people.
In a video message on the occasion, the Prime Minister said that PTI became country’s first party that brought the issue of corruption on national agenda, adding that government in its two and a half years managed to steer the country out of crisis and brought it on track of progress and prosperity.
There is no doubt that PTI had a clean background as its founding leader had spotless character and its slogans of crusade against corruption, bringing about a change for the better and making of a ‘New Pakistan’ brought it to power.
People had great expectations from the party and it was, indeed, a challenging mission to meet their aspirations given the ground realities.
Generally, elected leaders and parties avoid taking harsh measures for fear of losing their popularity but sincerity of Imran Khan to the cause of Pakistan can be judged by the fact that he tried to reform the system even at the risk of his popularity.
Some of the decisions were really painful for the people but they have started paying dividends as economy is doing well despite adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on economy, health, education, development and social life of the citizens.
It is because of sound policies of the PTI government that Pakistan’s current account posted a surplus of $959 million during first nine months of the current fiscal year of 2020/21 as against a deficit of $4.147 billion in the same period a year earlier.
The steps taken by the government and the State Bank of Pakistan have also encouraged overseas Pakistanis to remit money back home through official channels and as a result in the first nine months of FY21, the country received $21.5bn, a growth of 26pc when compared to last year’s remittances.
The government expects to receive over $28bn by end of the current fiscal, which would be much higher than the total proceeds from exports.
Apart from other economic stimulus packages, government also announced a robust package for construction industry to ensure acceleration of economic activity in the country and creation of employment opportunities for workers besides provision of homes to shelterless as per vision of the Prime Minister.
On the welfare side, Ehsaas Kafaalat programme for seven million women and two million special persons, Ehsaas Amdan, Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarships and Ehsaas Nashonuma programmes were also launched besides the start of a new initiative under the Ehsaas Programme named Ehsaas Koi Bhooka na Soye (EKBNS), an extension of the Ehsaas Langar Policy that aims to distribute cooked food.
In the health sector, Sehat Sahulat Card (Rs1 million health coverage for every family to get treatment at both public and private hospitals) for entire Punjab (end of year 2021), KP, including the merged districts (end of Jan 2021), AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and also for police, lawyers and transgenders were introduced.
As for education sector, credit goes to the PTI government for finalising a single national curriculum, groundbreaking of University of Hafizabad, University of Chakwal, Namal Knowledge City Phase 1 and Sialkot University of Applied Engineering and Technology was made beside inauguration of Pak-Austria Facchochschule Institute in Haripur and Kohsar University in Murree.
In the backdrop of shortages of food items that the country is witnessing for the last one year, the Prime Minister has made an announcement to launch a much-demanded Kissan cards scheme to bring about a green revolution, easing life of farmers.
The project for introduction of an e-voting system for next general elections is yet another milestone as it would help address the issue of much-needed credibility of the electoral system.
The unwavering commitment of the PM to root out the menace of corruption would surely have an impact on the overall situation but success of the campaign depends much on government ability to check rampant corruption at lower levels, which is directly impacting lives of the people.
Similarly, for people of Pakistan, the most important issue is price-hike, which government has not been able to handle effectively despite regular personal intervention of the Prime Minister.
With a new economic team and an advisory council in place, one hopes concrete measures would be taken to address root causes of inflation.
