Website to receive COVID-19 donations from expats launched

Islamabad: The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development has launched a website to welcome the charitable donations from Pakistani expatriates in a bid to help the people affected by the countrywide lockdowns and to stop the spread of coronavirus.

"Now, the Pakistani expatriates can take responsibility of the most vulnerable families whose lives are devastated by the partial lockdowns imposed in the country for containing the spread of COVID-19," Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari on Monday said while launching the website here at his office.

He said the website would work as a conduit for the donations from overseas Pakistanis towards the Prime Minister's COVID Relief Fund. It would also enable the expats to directly take responsibility of a family's ration for a certain period of time, he added.

The special assistant said the overseas Pakistanis could donate $10,000 maximum on the website: covid.ophrd.gov.pk to support the government's relief effort against the coronavirus. "We have designed different types of buckets on the website through which an expat can support multiple families who cannot make their ends meet in such trying times," he said while urging the overseas Pakistani to donate generously towards the national cause.

Zulfikar Bukhari said his ministry would launch a ration distribution drive to deliver cooked meal and food at the doorsteps of most affected people. "It is the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan to take care of poor and needy so we, being his cabinet members, will lead from the front for such a humanitarian cause."

He said the government had also taken a landmark initiative of Ehsaas Emergency Cash under which daily wagers and destitute were being reached out across the country to offer them Rs12,000 financial support in such harsh times.