KARACHI, Oct 17: Provincial minister for health and population welfare, Maj-Gen E Ahsan Ahmad, has said that the government will create a fund of Rs20 million under the Sindh Health Foundation (SHF) to extend loans to doctors for setting up clinics in rural areas.

He was presiding over a high-level meeting convened to consider reactivation of the SHF at his office on Thursday.

The minister said that the SHF was founded in 1996 with a board of 18 members but it had been inactive for a long tome. He informed that SHF was now being reactivated with a new board of seven members only whose chairman would be the secretary health; other members would;d be the DG health, the secretary finance, the additional secretary planning & development health, a principal of any medical college from the public sector, the MD SHF and the president of the Pakistan Medical Association.

He said that the chairman of the Foundation would be an officer of grade-20, serving or retired, who would be appointed after approval of the summary by the governor Sindh. He said that a summary containing recommendations for reactivating the SHF had already been forwarded to the governor.

Ahsan Ahmad said that the main objective of the SHF was to provide loans to doctors at a low rate of 8% interest and preference would be given to those doctors who desired to set up clinics in the far-flung areas of the province.

He said that the borrowing doctor would have to spend 30% out of his own pocket and the SHF would provide 70% loan for establishing the clinic. In the first phase, a loan up to Rs100,000 would be advanced and, after its repayment in the agreed duration, a further loan up to Rs500,000 would be given on the same terms. The loan, he said, would be given in three instalments. The building plan must be approved by the SHF, the minister added.—PPI