Popular singer-turned-actor Ali Zafar has made an appeal to President Dr Arif Alvi for financial help on behalf of struggling artists, musicians, technicians and performers who are facing difficult time during COVID-19. The 40-year-old shared a video on Twitter in which he said: “This is an appeal to the president of Pakistan on behalf of those deserving musicians, technicians and performers for whom it has become difficult to sustain due to coronavirus as crowds will probably start gathering – on larger as well as smaller level – after COVID-19 vaccination is introduced which is still faraway. ‘This is an appeal to the president of Pakistan on behalf of those deserving musicians, technicians and performers for whom it has become difficult to sustain due to coronavirus as crowds will probably start gathering – on larger as well as smaller level – after COVID-19 vaccination is introduced which is still faraway’ “I am specially talking about this sector [performing arts] as I belong to this field and this industry is related to entertainment. Though, we cannot call it an industry as it has not been given the importance which it deserves and reforms are required, but this is a different debate for a different time. “My foundation has been sending food and donation to musicians in Punjab for several weeks and has now collaborated with another foundation to make the process of money transfer easier through mobile phone. Arts Council is doing wonderful work in Karachi and I am in touch with it on daily basis. “We already have data of the deserving musicians, technicians, performers and artists. I want to thank you for increasing the yearly budget of the artist welfare fund from 250 million to one billion rupees, and request you to immediately disseminate this fund because these people are in very difficult situation.”