Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal here on Thursday directed to establish a Green Channel mechanism in Planning Ministry for processing the flood related projects on urgent basis to swiftly utilize the foreign multilateral funding.
The minister was chairing meeting that was convened under the Chairmanship of Federal Minister / Deputy Chairman Planning Commission to review a revised project presented by Ministry of National Food Security Research.
The meeting was attended by Chief Economist Dr. Nadeem Javaid, Members Planning Commission and senior officers of line ministries. The Central Development Working Party recommended the project tiled “Locust Emergency and Food Security” with the total cost of Rs. 25,120 million to Executive Committee of the National Economic Council for further consideration. Apart from World Bank assistance of Rs.21,120 million, Government of Pakistan has also a share of Rs 4000 million.
Locust Emergency and Food Security is an ongoing project being sponsored by M/o National Food Security Research and will be implemented all over the country. An amount of Rs. 800 million has been allocated during the current fiscal year 2022-23.
In the face of the challenges posed by recent floods, the public sector development projects funds are being reallocated to cater the prevailing emergency needs. The Locust Emergency and Food Security Project is being revised to reallocate funds for providing wheat and oil seeds to the farmers in the flood affected areas.
The minister further directed to review the scope to facilitate flood affected farmers. He said the sponsors will review vehicle demand and all project vehicles will be monitored and reported on monthly basis through tracking system for effective use. It was directed to ensure maximum resources under the project towards input supply to the farmers.
The project has been submitted to ECNEC for further consideration.
Islamophobia: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday said that Muslims were undoubtedly facing a prejudice in the form of Islamophobia and the solution to this lies in knowledge and wisdom.
He was speaking at a two-day international conference on the topic of “Islamophobia & its impact on relations between Islamic & Western civilizations” held at the International Islamic University. The conference is organized by Islamic Research Institute (IRI) in collaborations with Muslim World League, Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Faculty of Shariah and Law and Faculty of Usuluddin of IIUI.
The minister also held that the real cause of extremism was prejudice because terming it a virus that destroys human rationale. Meanwhile, commenting on the cause of ‘Islampophia,’ Ahsan Iqbal said that it was related to bigotry, which should be countered strategically instead of a conspiracy theory.
