LAHORE, Dec 9: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi on Tuesday took a serious notice of the high prices of certain items of daily use.
Presiding over a meeting here, he directed the district governments and the provincial departments to jointly ensure a reduction in the prices.
The system evolved during Ramazan to control prices would be continued the entire year to provide relief to the people.
The chief minister said judicial powers had already been given to the DEOs (Revenue) to enforce laws regarding the prices of items of daily use. He directed them to sternly deal with those charging extra from people.
Pervaiz Elahi directed the officials concerned to also make foolproof arrangements for the distribution of subsidized wheat flour among an estimated 700,000 families in the province.
Briefing the chief minister on the prices of essential commodities, Minister for Food Chaudhry Iqbal said the prices of many items like mutton and tomato were still high while those of chicken, eggs and onion had been reduced after Eidul Fitr.
Chief Secretary Hafeez Akhtar Randhawa, food department secretary and other senior officers also attended the meeting.
HEALTH: The chief minister announced that the pilot project of the health help line service would be launched in Lahore, Bahawalpur and Chakwal.
Presiding over another meeting, Pervaiz Elahi said the pilot project was aimed at providing instant information to patients about the treatment of their ailments.
He said a steering committee had been constituted under Minister for Health Dr Tahir Ali Javed for devising the help line and tele-medicine systems in the province. Adviser Dr Javed Asghar and secretaries of the finance and information technology departments would be the members of the committee.
The chief minister said under the tele-medicine system all district headquarter hospitals would be linked to the teaching hospitals. Under the system, patients of far-off places would be able to consult specialist doctors with the help of audio-video conference.
He said the standard of medical cover in the emergency wards of all hospitals in the province would be at par with those in Europe and other developed countries in the world.
The minister for health said a comprehensive plan had been made for the management, planning and training of the staff of the emergency wards. With the introduction of the ambulance service and the reorganization of the emergency wards, the people could get the best treatment.
MEETS MPs: The chief minister also met several MNAs, MPAs and Nazims of Sialkot and Vehari on Tuesday, and discussed with them matters pertaining to the reorganization of the PML-Q, besides development plans.