While responding federal govt decision of stopping Sehat Card facility for merged districts, Finance and Health Minister KP TaimurJhaghra has said that the decision to stop the Sehat Card for 12 lakh families of the merged districts is a unilateral and an illegal one by the federal govt. He uttered that the responsibility for this criminal act lies with all the parties in the federal govt, Including PMLN, JUI, PPP, ANP and others including so called tribal representatives such as MohsinDawar. While retaliating on sitting PM statements on KP and Ex-Fata, FM said that Shehbaz Sharif goes announcing medical colleges and universities in Fata and saying he will sell his clothes to provide cheap atta to the people of KP. But in reality, he is taking away their basic right to health services. He is truly proving himself to be a crime minister for KP. “The federal govt is hiding behind a summary approved by the PM Imran Khan, and lying that Imran Khan decided to transfer the Sehat Card without funding. This is a lie” he added. He also said that the summary approved the transfer of the programme, and asked for the PC1 to be revised, and for funding modalities to be approved by the CDWP, where KP is represented by ACS P&D. None of this has happened. No revised PC1 has been brought to the CDWP. “This means that while funding is approved, and the PC1 covers the tribal districts, funds are only not being received by the tribal citizens, while people of Islamabad, Punjab, GB and Kashmir continue to receive funding. This may be challengeable in court” he explained. Reminding of Merged Areas budget cuts, Taimur says that since no revised NFC is in place, any spending by KP in the tribal districts is dependent on federal transfers. The federal government cannot transfer liabilities to KP without funding. In particular in a year where the current budget transfer by the federal govt for FATA is 60 bln, down from 77 billion last year. This is 25 billion lesser than actual costs for next year. Referring to official correspondence minister for health and finance told that the health department already wrote in response to a letter by the federal govt, to say that the federal govt cannot unilaterally transfer the Fata Sehat card programme to KP without agreement on cost. “The question of how KP will finance this comes later. At this point, the entire federal govt and allies need to apologise for their actions to the people of Fata and reverse their decision” FM suggested. Online RDA organizes seminar on dengue control, prevention Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) on the directives of Director General, RDA, here on Saturday organized a seminar and walk on dengue control and prevention with an aim to raise awareness against the disease. The seminar was attended by Director Admin & Finance RDA Asif MehmoodJanjua, Deputy Director Admin, Iftikhar Ali, Deputy Director, Finance Muhammad Junaid Taj Bhatti, Deputy Director, IT Dawood Khalid, Deputy Director, Public Relations Hafiz Muhammad Irfan, Assistant Director, BC, Ali Raza, RDA Staff, RDA Union President Khawaja Javed and others. Director Admin and Finance RDA said that the government departments and citizens should join hands to control the virus. He also recommended preventive measures against the dengue mosquitoes and stressed the importance of collective preventive measures against it. He urged the RDA staff members to ensure cleanliness of the office and their homes. He said awareness played a key role in the fight against dengue because prevention was far better than cure. He stressed the need for collective as well as individual efforts along with collaboration of all the stakeholders for the awareness, implementation and control of any epidemic. He also highlighted ways to control various developmental stages of dengue from its eggs to larva and full grown mosquitoes. He advised the citizens to remove stagnant water so that dengue larvae could be prevented. On severe violations, strict action in accordance with the law is taken against the violators and FIRs are also lodged, he added. He also appreciated the work being done by RDA Anti-Dengue team especially RDA’s Dengue Focal Person, Ali Raza and hoped that the authority would continue its efforts against dengue. According to RDA spokesman, The Director General RDA had urged the citizens to take special care against dengue, ensure cleanliness and adopt all possible preventive measures to control the virus. The DG said that the citizens should remove stagnant water and adopt SOPs issued by the Punjab government to control dengue. Later, a dengue awareness walk was organized while pamphlets were also distributed among the citizens on Murree road.