Federal Cabinet discusses overall political, economic situation

August 28, 2019: The meeting of the Federal Cabinet chaired was held in Islamabad on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair. The cabinet discussed overall political and economic situation of the country besides the prevailing situation in occupied Kashmir.

Giving briefing to media on cabinet meeting in Islamabad today, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan said the Prime Minister was informed that token system has been introduced in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate the public on first come first serve basis.

Federal Minister for Aviation informed the cabinet that Civil Aviation department will introduce a system that will work in coordination with Meteorology Department to give timely information to people and especially farmers regarding weather conditions.

Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar informed the meeting that a decision has been made to turn all economic support from abroad into grant in aid, rather than loans.

Prime Minister directed to speed up the process of completion of public development projects. He urged the cabinet members to make distinction between project planning and project implementation. Imran Khan also emphasized to arrange and manage human resource well in time so that projects are not delayed unnecessarily.

Ministry of IT shared the projects with the cabinet for increasing capacity building of youth, increasing international IT exports, and talent hunt programmes.

The Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad informed the cabinet that rail ticket prices have been reduced to half for persons who are 65 year old while four free tickets will be given per annum to persons above 75 years of age. He said 3.7 million liters of diesel has been saved with effective measures to stop its pilferage.

Advisor on Commerce Abdul Razzak Dawood told the meeting that earlier Pakistani products were being sold worldwide with tags of different countries. The Commerce Ministry is now working on legislation to protect Pakistani brand name.

Advisor on Institutional Reforms Dr. Ishrat Hussain informed of various measures which have resulted in improved performance of public sector institutions. It was told that heads of 30 organizations have been appointed on fair and transparent manner.

The cabinet was also informed of measures to register home based workers with EOBI after setting up a new database. Similarly, a database of overseas Pakistanis will also be set up.

The cabinet was also apprised that bill payment deadline of gas bills will be increased to a fortnight to give people sufficient time for bill payments.