Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has made public a mobile application, namely the Sindh Relief Initiative, on which welfare organisations can register to work with the provincial government for the distribution of ration among daily-wagers at their doorstep. The application is available on the Google Play Store.
He said this while presiding over a meeting with welfare organisations. The meeting was attended by provincial ministers, the law adviser, the special assistants, heads of different welfare organisations, the chief secretary, the IG police, the home secretary, the additional IG Karachi, the finance secretary and others.
The Sindh Relief Initiative is aimed at providing ration to the daily-wagers and the needy people at their doorstep, the CM said, adding the government would distribute areas among different welfare organisations for the distribution of ration.
The chief minister said that according to the 2017 census, the population of the province came to 50 million and of them 10 million people (or 1.4 million families) were daily-wagers. Therefore, he added, the government with the support of the welfare organisations have to provide them with ration bags.
He said out of the 10 million daily-wagers, 25 per cent of them were associated with the construction industry who were covered under the EOBI, 35 per cent were affiliated with the textile and ancillary industries so they were also registered with the EOBI, and 40 per cent workers were in the SME, cottage and roadside shops and transport industry so they were not registered with any organisation such as the EOBI or the SESSI.
CM Murad said if an average family was provided with a ration bag of Rs5,500, the total amount would come to Rs7.7 billion, if all 1.4 million families were covered. “I am developing a mechanism to reach each and every family so that nobody lives without ration,” he said. The chief minister said all stake holders, including the government and the non-governmental organisations, should use the same platform to promote uniformity in the whole disbursement exercise.
The SOPs for the disbursement would be signed by all stakeholders, he said, and added that they would use technology for the disbursement data management and record keeping. He said the Sindh Relief Initiative has been developed to providing a single platform for all relief activities. The app would ensure uniformity in the disbursement by registering CNICs so that no duplication could happen, he said. “The App will do volunteer management as well as register donors.”
He thanked the organizations, including the Karachi Relief Trust, the Saylani Welfare, the Edhi Foundation, the Bait-us-Salam, the Citizen Foundation, the Chhipa Welfare Association, the Zindagi Trust, the Patient Aid, for supporting the government in its initiative. He said with the support of the government, welfare organisations had started the distribution of ration among the daily-wagers and the needy people in different areas and around 200,000 families had so far been provided with bags for 15 days of ration.
So far, he said, 12 organisations had joined the Sindh Relief Initiative via the mobile app. The chief minister said energy minister Imtiaz Shaikh, LG minister Nasir Shah and his adviser Murtaza Wahab would coordinate with the welfare organisations for a fair distribution of ration at the doorstep of the people.
Border sealed
The chief minister has said there is a ban on the inter-provincial passenger transport but still people from Sindh left for Punjab and were stuck up at the border.
“The Punjab government, in consultation with the Sindh government, has sealed its border for the passenger transport, therefore they would not allow them to enter into the Punjab. I would like to advise you not to leave your home during these critical days,” he said. The chief minister said through the home department he had issued directives to all the deputy commissioners to not allow the inter-district passenger transport.
