Daily Times

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz on Thursday announced substantial decrease in price of flour with a subsidy of around Rs 200 billion besides ensuring availability of free medicines to cancer and other patients in hospitals across the province.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the incumbent government was well aware of problems being faced by the common man and would made the 10-kg flour bag available from today at a price of Rs 490 than previous price of Rs 650. He said the government with an aim to lessen the burden on the masses would be offering a subsidy of Rs 160 on a 10-kg bag of flour.

The chief minister said that a relief package to provide subsidized sugar was also being considered and would be announced soon. The incumbent government was working whole-heartedly to provide immediate relief to people of the province, he added. He said that price control committees had been set up in all districts of the province to ensure provision of edibles at fixed rates.

He criticized the previous government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf which gave hollow slogans to people and delivered nothing in practical. Slogan of employment was raised when they came to power but rather providing employment, they deprived hundreds of thousand people from jobs. The PTI government played havoc with the institutions, he said adding that the Punjab province which was once known for good governance, its affairs were now showing a gloomy picture.

To a question, he said that devaluation of the rupee was a result of the poor policies of the previous government and the uncertain situation developed by the PTI. The chief minister said that unlike the previous PTI government, he would never indulge into politics of revenge, however, the law would take its course against those who misused public offices.

Hamza Shehbaz said that he himself and his family, as well as senior party leadership, was made target of worst political victimization in the name of accountability. He said that the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) was a landmark project of the PML-N government and now its 35 per cent cameras were not in working condition due to negligence of the previous government.

To another question, the chief minister said the PML-N government made the country load-shedding free with its hardwork by adding 12,000 megawatt electricity into the system but the incompetence of the PTI government brought back the power outages. He added that the PML-N would leave no stone unturned to tackle the situation.