ISLAMABAD: Prime Minis­ter Imran Khan has expressed the hope that the steps being taken to check price hike will soon bear fruit.

This was stated by the prime minister while speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary group of the ruling alliance here on Thursday.

There was no official word about the meeting which was held at the Prime Minister Secretariat and sources said that besides having a general discussion on the current political situation in the country, the participants also got an opportunity to raise issues of their constituencies.

The sources said that the prime minister in his speech said that his party had come to power after defeating “mafias” which believed that their survival would become difficult if this government succeeded in implementing its programme.

According to the sources, Mr Khan during the meeting praised the steps so far taken by the authorities to monitor coronavirus and disclosed that he had convened a meeting of the National Security Committee on Friday (today) to devise a national strategy.

The prime minister gave the example of Italy, saying that like Pakistan, the number of coronavirus patients was very low in Italy in the beginning, but now almost the whole country had been locked down.

He criticised the past rulers over, what he called, expensive power agreements, saying that they were providing gas on cheaper rates to the people after buying it on higher prices.

The sources quoted the prime minister as saying that the circular debt on gas was already over Rs120 billion.

They said when some members called for giving relief to the masses in the wake of the reduction in oil prices in the international market, Mr Khan asked them to pray that the money being saved would not have to be spent to deal with the spread of coronavirus.

The sources said the lawmakers called for releasing development funds for the elected representatives. Some of the legislators also complained about non-cooperation with them by certain bureaucrats.

A number of lawmakers from Balochistan complained about the non-cooperation of the provincial government in resolving the issues related to their constituencies.

Meanwhile, Sindh Gover­nor Imran Ismail called on the prime minister to discuss development projects in the province.

State-run APP reported that the prime minister lauded the role of the Sindh governor in completion of federal government’s projects in Karachi and instructed him to plan for more development schemes for the city, considering the residents’ needs.

Mr Khan said the development of the country and Karachi was interlinked and the federal government was alive to the development needs and problems faced by the people of that city.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2020