ACCORDING to a Gallup survey, as many as seventy three percent Pakistanis have strongly approved government’s management of Covid-19 which in fact is twenty one percent high than global average of people expressing satisfaction with their respective government’s handling of the pandemic. According to survey, the satisfactory response peaked during March 2020 and once again from Oct-Dec 2020. This indicates that the PTI government took timely decisions including that of closing educational institutions as well as of different businesses to check the first and second wave of the contagion to save precious lives.
However, there is another survey conducted by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics that reveals that country’s forty percent households are facing moderate or severe food insecurity in the aftermath of Covid-19. This indeed is not a small figure and warrants serious attention and action on part of both federal and provincial governments. Under the Ehsaas Cash Assistance programme, federal government had provided a cash grant of Rs 12000 to each deserving families when businesses were shut during the first wave of pandemic in the country.
Since the pandemic has badly affected livelihoods of the people rendering hundreds of thousands of people jobless, therefore, there is a need to provide more cash assistance to vulnerable segments of the society so that they could pass through this difficult time. Going a step further, those rendered jobless must also be provided with interest free loans so that they could once again stand on their own feet and earn their livelihoods with honour and dignity. And most importantly, there should not be any delay in procurement of anti-Covid vaccine as ensuring health of our people, we can restore normalcy in all walks of life and also ensure food security.
