Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday said that he has asked Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to set up tents for people sleeping on footpaths and provide them with food until the Panah Gah shelters are built.

Taking to Twitter, the premier said the initiative was being undertaken "as weather is turning increasingly cold".

He added that spots were also being located in Peshawar and Karachi.

A few hours after his initial tweet, PM Khan shared images of tents being set up in Lahore to serve as temporary shelters.

On November 10, PM Khan laid the foundation stone for the first shelter home Panah Gah near the railway station in Lahore. He said it would be the first step towards transforming Pakistan into a welfare state.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” he quoted a Chinese proverb.

PM Khan had said the Panah Gah project would benefit the homeless and needy. The visitors would be offered quality food to be provided by philanthropists. “Such people were never taken care of in previous governments,” he lamented. He said the other shelters would be established at Icchra, Chauburji, Data Darbar and Shahdara.

Emphasising that the Panah Gah projects will be made centres of excellence, the prime minister had said that a board of governors (BoG) would oversee the maintenance and functioning of these centres. “The BoG will finalise the policy for the shelter homes,” he added.

The prime minister said he had also asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister to find locations to establish shelter homes in Peshawar.

Similarly, he said, the Sindh governor had also been instructed and the chief minister would be asked to work on establishing shelter homes in Karachi and other big cities in the province.