KHAR: The security forces here have launched a scheme to provide essential food items to the needy people of Bajaur tribal district who have been staying at their homes due to the lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19.

According to a statement issued from Bajaur Scouts headquarters here, the scheme was aimed at ensuring availability of essential food items to daily wage workers and poor people. The scheme has been launched on the directives of senior officials of the security forces.

The statement said that the scheme was formally launched at various localities of Khar tehsil, including Lowi Sam, Lowi Joor and Thangi, where food packages were distributed among 40 needy families. Each of the packages includes flour, ghee, sugar, tea, salt and pulses.

Meanwhile, scores of welfare associations and social activists of the district also launched distribution of foods items among the needy families.

Rehan Zeb Khan, a 32-year-old youth leader who firstly launched the initiative, told this scribe on Friday that he started the scheme a week ago after receiving information that needy people in different areas of the district had been facing food shortages.

He said that he mobilised scores of youth in different areas of the district to collect funds from well-off people and then started providing essential food items to the needy people.

PASSENGERS QUARANTINED: At least 56 passengers who arrived from Karachi in a dumper truck here the other day have been quarantined in Bajaur tribal district.

Officials of the district administration told this correspondent that all the passengers were labourers and daily wage workers. They said that all the passengers had been shifted to the district headquarters hospital, Khar, for medical checkup and later to a quarantine centre as a precautionary measure.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2020