LAHORE: Launching the 'Punjab Rozgar Scheme' worth Rs 30 billion, Chief Minister Sardar Usman said on Thursday that over 1.6 million needy persons will get employment through this scheme.
Addressing the ceremony, the CM maintained the PTI-led government had started taking practical steps to fulfil the promise of provision of job and the scheme would make the youth self-reliant and job-providers. "Youth will be provided loans on priority basis and owners of small and medium enterprises, as well as those economically suffering from corona, would be able to resume economic activities," he said.
Giving the details, the CM announced that loans of Rs 100,000 to 10 million would be given at minimal interest rates in collaboration with the Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC) and the Bank of Punjab. Men, women, differently-abled, and the transgender community of 20 to 50 years of age would get benefit from that beneficial scheme, he said. Small loans would be provided for 339 sub-sectors of 23 assorted sectors, including 26 sub-sectors of the textile industry, to boost business, trade, and manufacturing in the province, he added. This facility will promote the cottage industry and interested persons could expand their businesses by benefitting from the scheme.
Sardar Usman maintained that the loan process had been made easy and the interested youth could submit their applications through PSIC, Bank of Punjab websites, or Punjab Rozgar App. The PTI government was transforming skills as an investment as it was the biggest social asset to make the youth prosperous, he added.
Provincial Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal on the occasion lamented that the metro was erected in the previous tenure but the welfare of the poor was badly ignored as past rulers spent a whopping 250 billion rupees on the Orange Line Metro Train but did not give a penny to the needy skilled workers. "Had this money been spent on imparting skilled education to the poor children, the country would have been different today," he added. A project like the metro did not earn the poor the bread as such projects were started for the sake of kickbacks and political gimmickry, he said.
Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht in his speech termed the youth as an asset and announced to empower it to strengthen the national economy. This scheme will be reviewed every month to make it better than the best. He announced to motivate banks to give loans to the housing sector and hoped that the scheme would prove a game-changing initiative. MD PSIC stated that the target of giving loans to 68,000 SMEs has been fixed.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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