*ISLAMABAD – The government has decided to extend its Insaf Health cardscheme to other provinces and allocated an amount for the purpose insupplementary budget.*
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Asad Umar on Tuesday whilepresenting supplementary Finance Bill 2018 said, “We will provide Rs540,000 per family in the form of Sehat Insaf Card for doctors’ fees andmedicines in former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) andIslamabad”.
Umar said that the Punjab government had also been instructed to introducethe facility in that province as well.
He expressed his optimism while commenting that Baluchistan and Sindhprovincial governments were expected to replicate the health card scheme toextend this public welfare project across the country.
The minister alsosaid the government proposed to slash around Rs 250billion on the development projects under Public Sector DevelopmentProgramme (PSDP) 2018-19 to Rs 725 billion.
The previous government allocated Rs 23 billion for Diamer-Bhasha dam andRs 46 billion for various development projects of HEC under PSDP 2018-19.
Meanwhile, the Minister said foreign debts had also surged to 95 billiondollar from 60 billion dollar.
The Finance Minister also announced some relief measures for differentsegments of society. Petroleum Development Levy worth 100 billion rupees asenvisaged in the current budget has been withdrawn for the benefit of thepeople, said Umar.
“Regulatory duty imposed by the previous government in the budget on 82tariff lines has been abolished for raw material meant for export relatedindustries.”
This would involve relief of five billion rupee for the industry.