SAHIWAL: Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Saturday inaugurated the ‘Sehat Insaf Card’ scheme for the Sahiwal division.

“Sehat Insaf Card is a gift for the marginalised and poor segments of society. Around 25pc of the population will get health benefits through the cards,” he said at a ceremony organised at Circuit House. He distributed cards to many people of Okara, Pakpattan and Sahiwal.

He said the health initiative was part of the development projects worth Rs68 billion for Sahiwal division.

The chief minister announced that the government was planning to give health cards to religious scholars, disabled persons and industrial labourers having social security cards in the next phase. He said he had already announced the health card facility for the provincial government employees.

As many as 700,000 families of Sahiwal division would get benefit of the initiative.

A card holder will get health cover up to Rs720,000 from public and private sector hospitals. In all, he said, the health card project would benefit 30 million people in the country.

The Punjab government would also provide Rs1,000 fare to the patients so that they could safely travel back to their homes after treatment in any health facility, he said. Eight private hospitals -- Christian Hospital, Imtiaz Hospital and Maternity Center, Rahat Surgical Center, Shalimar Hospital (Sahiwal) and the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Farooq Hospital, Sharif Medical City and Akhtar Hospital (Lahore) had been associated with Sahiwal division.

Earlier, health minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said the Punjab government had allocated Rs277 billion for the health sector. She said nine new hospitals would be built and 50 hospitals at the district level would be upgraded.

The chief minister also inaugurated seven mega projects worth Rs800 million for Sahiwal district. These projects were started during the last PML-N government and most of these had been completed. He inaugurated Model Cattle Market; Quaid-i-Azam Cricket Stadium and Floodlight Project; Government Boys Degree College, Kameer; Office of the Municipal Committee, Kameer; Rural Health Center, Kameer; Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, Renala Khurd; Modern Complaint Center; Driving Testing Lab and Pukar 15 office.

Mr Buzdar visited the 1,320 MW Sahiwal coal-fired power plant and planted a tree there as part of the ongoing plantation campaign.

The chief minister met a three-member delegation of senior journalists at Circuit House. They demanded a journalists housing colony in Sahiwal. The CM directed Commissioner Nadeemur Rehman to develop a feasibility report of a housing colony and send him report.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2019