Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani has said the provincial government spends more than the Centre’s expenditure on the health insurance card scheme so that free healthcare facilities are available to the people of the province at public and private sector hospitals.
Talking to media persons at the Sindh Assembly on Saturday, he said the government in the current financial year alone had spent Rs57 billion as grants for different hospitals of the province.
The information minister was responding to the appeal Prime Minister Imran Khan made the other day that the Sindh government like other provinces should join the health insurance card scheme of the Centre.
He told media persons that the much-trumpeted health insurance card facility of the federal government was meant only to benefit the private hospitals, as it was the government’s job to empower the public sector healthcare facilities.
He said they had advised the federal government that instead of offering any discount on food rations for the deserving families.
the monetary support for the underprivileged families through the Benazir Income Support Programme should be increased as a database of the beneficiaries was already available with the government for the purpose.
Responding to the suggestion of Prime Minister Khan that the Sindh government should agree to the proposal to develop Bundal Island off Karachi’s coast, he said the provincial government had earlier issued a no-objection certificate for carrying out development works on islands, but the federal government, later on, promulgated an ordinance to assume control of islands without any permission from the province.
Regarding the K-IV bulk water supply project for Karachi, he said the federal government would only build the water channel for the project, and the province would build the power and pumping stations to complete the scheme.
He said the Sindh government had served much more in the health, education and other public service sectors than any other province, and that was why the Pakistan People’s Party had lately emerged victorious in the areas that were otherwise considered strongholds of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
Speaking on the occasion, Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah said the federal government had spent Rs28.
5 billion on 100 buses for the Bus Rapid Transit System in Karachi, while the Sindh government was spending Rs38.
5 million for bringing 250 buses under the Sindh Intra-District Peoples Bus Service.
He said that very soon these buses would reach Karachi.
The transport minister said the Sindh government had never opposed the Green Line BRTS project, but the PM the other day had launched an incomplete mass transit project in Karachi.
He said the PM had shown haste in launching merely the trial service of the Green Line BRTS in Karachi, which showed that his days in power were numbered.
