Bilawal launches Benazir Hari Card

KARACHI: Launching Benazir Hari Card, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Monday said his party always worked to secure the rights of the poor, farmers, and women. Speaking at the Chief Minister House here, he said the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) introduced by the previous PPP government, had become a global example of financial assistance for women.

He said the PPP Sindh government was now introducing the Benazir Hari Card, and recalled that it was the vision of the late Benazir Bhutto to see the farmers becoming the main beneficiaries of the Hari Card.

He said before Asif Ali Zardari’s first tenure as president, the economic conditions of farmers were critical, but thanks to his (Zardari’s) decisions that an agricultural revolution had been brought about within a year and the farmers prospered, and the entire economy stood on its own feet.

“Today, when we review our economy, every segment of the society seems distressed and facing hardships,” he said, adding, “As elected representatives, it is our responsibility to solve your problems, and that is why the people have chosen us.”

Bilawal condemned the conspiracy being hatched by mafias, large business groups, industrialists, and international forces to deregulate the agriculture sector. He noted that proposing deregulation of the farming sector was a nonsense idea at present when climate change had endangered human lives.

He demanded that government withdraw billions of rupees worth of subsidies being given to the fertilizer manufacturers and give it directly to the growers to help them fight any intrigue against the farming sector. He described investment in agriculture as the only path to national development.