PESHAWAR: Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the ruling PTI’s flagship project of the Sehat Card Plus in Swat district today (Friday).

Health minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra told reporters here on Thursday that the initiative promised the provision of free healthcare up to Rs1 million to the residents of six districts of Malakand division.

“The Sehat Card Plus is a gift of the PTI for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. From Jan 31, they all will benefit from this unprecedented healthcare facility for which the government has allocated Rs18 billion,” he said.

The minister said coronavirus pandemic was a reality and therefore, the people should adopt precautionary measures against it to stay safe.

He said strict adherence to the standard operating procedures was necessary to contain the spread of the virus.

“Without the people’s support, the government can’t contain this virus. We have to keep the economy moving by following SOPs,” he said.

People will get free healthcare up to Rs1m under initiative

The minister said the government was taking cogent steps to stem the spread of coronavirus. He said Chief Minister Mahmood Khan was leading the Provincial Task Force to monitor the Covid-19-related situation and ensure preemptive and precautionary measures to check the spread of the virus.

He said all institutions were on the same page for the fight against coronavirus in the province.

Meanwhile, the Provincial Task Force has directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistics to complete the second phase of the survey on job and income losses by Dec 2020 to assess the lasting economic and employment impact of the current spell of COVID-19 in the province.

The task force which held an emergency meeting here on Thursday focused on assigning roles and proposing measures for the availability of essential food commodities in case the spread of the second wave of COVID-19 spiraled in the province.

Additional Chief Secretary Shakil Qadir Khan chaired the meeting. The meeting directed the bureau to maintain accurate data during the pandemic.

The provincial planning and development department had conducted study during first phase of the pandemic that approximately 1.3 million people could lose their jobs if a 45-day lockdown was put in place. The report revealed that around 460,000 daily wagers and street vendors were set to lose their employment with “immediate effect”.

The task force decided that the food department would be closely monitoring and reporting the demand and supply gap of essential food items in all the districts of the province. All the Deputy Commissioners and District Food Controllers in the province would be notified of the decision for their implementation.

The additional chief secretary directed the officials of food, industries and agriculture departments to ensure availability of sufficient reserves and to keep an eye on the food situation, including perishable food items like vegetables and fruits.

These proactive steps would balance the cumulative demand and supply of food items and keep the prices in check. An official statement said that district food controllers had been assigned the tasks of collecting and updating the data of available stocks in their respective districts on a daily basis.

Each district’s stock position will be uploaded and shared through the online data portal managed by the Performance Management and Reforms Unit. The meeting was told that rising COVID-19 trends in the province had once again called for priority actions by the government to pre-empt the economic impact.

“Although COVID-19 is primarily a health matter, the crisis may spread out from emergency healthcare to food security, if not administered properly,” the statement said while quoting additional chief secretary.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2020