Federal Cabinet has approved reduction in prices of sugar and flour for provision of relief to people during Ramazan.
This was stated by Minster for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb while briefing media persons along with Minister for Finance Miftah Ismail about decisions taken in the federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Wednesday.
The Information Minister said the Prime Minister’s direction for price reduction of 10 kilogram flour pack from 550 rupees to 400 rupees during Ramazan was accorded approval.
She said the subsidized flour will be available everywhere in Punjab.
She said reduction in sugar price from 80 rupees per kilogram to 70 rupees per kilogram at utility stores during Ramazan was also approved.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said directions have been given to ensure provision of sugar and flour across the country.
She said Punjab Government will supply flour to Gilgit-Baltistan. She said supply of flour to Azad Kashmir will be a gift from Punjab Government.
The Minister said the foremost priority of the coalition government is revival of economy.
To a question, Marriyum Aurangzeb said a cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Law Minister Azam Tarar has been constituted to review Exit Control List law and will submit its report to the cabinet in three days.
Talking about poor performance of the previous PTI government, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said fiscal deficit remained 1,600 billion rupees per annum on average during the last government of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, while the Imran Khan led-government took this figure to around 5,600 billion rupees.
He said total debt of the country from 1947 to 2018 was 25,000 billion rupees, whereas PTI Government added 20,000 billion rupees to these in just three and half years.
Regarding power outages in the country, the Finance Minister said power plants with a capacity of 7,500 megawatts of electricity are lying closed due to inaptness and incompetence of the previous government.
Meanwhile addressing the “Meet the Press” program, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting said the government strongly believes in full freedom of expression and will implement the law in letter and spirit.
She said the government is well aware about the problems being faced by journalists’ community and bold steps will be taken to address them.
Responding a question, the Minister said the previous government had completely made the “right to information” non-functional but the coalition government will ensure implementation of this right.
Source: Radio Pakistan