As COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across the world, all the countries are in limelight against this contagious pandemic. Every government around the world is in serious concern in order to mitigate the contagious effects of this virus. Apart from Asia, western countries are also struggling despite having advanced technologies and medical facilities. Full, partial, and smart lockdown in multiple countries around the world have derailed the economy rate. The deficiency of daily life resources occurred in the past few months around the world.
Pakistan is also combating with this calamity by focusing mainly on laborers, small businesses, and the families associated with them. Laborers are the ones who are actually fighting like a warrior in this crucial stage of Lockdown because their only source of income is their per day wage. Prime Minister Imran Khan along with his Cabinet is fully aligned towards generating the right policies in order to release the economy from the deficit. In order to stabilize the economy, Imran Khan developed some optimistic policies for the construction sector that leads to A positive breakthrough for Real Estate Sector amid Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It all stands testimony to the vision of the prime minister of Pakistan that the Construction Industry got remunerations as Incentive Package.
Many positive initiatives have been taken by the Government of Pakistan to strengthen small businesses and daily wagers during this pandemic situation. Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the Federal Cabinet mutually declared acceptance for the Government’s COVID-19 relief package in order to reinforce the daily wagers and the small businesses.
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On 27th April 2020, Hammad Azhar who is currently serving Industries and Production Ministry declared the issuance of a package by Economic Coordination Committee in a press conference. This budget is finalized as a COVID-19 relief package for small businesses, often referred to as SMEs. This budget will also be a savior for all the laborers and unemployed persons who have been laid off due to coronavirus.
COVID-19 Relief Package for Small Businesses in Pakistan
Under the mutual alliance of the Economic Coordination Committee and the Ministry of Industries & Production, they proclaimed “Chota Karobar Imdadi Package”. This package will get a huge plus for all the small businesses and small enterprises. From this package, all the 3.5 million SMEs will get a Financial Asylum from the Government of Pakistan.
Regarding SMEs, all the commercial connections with up to 5KW consumption or an industrial connection with up to 70KW consumption will be entertained in this package. The government of Pakistan will pay their electricity bill of three months prior from May 2020 to July 2020.
The main purpose of this scheme is to give financial hope to all those small business owners who have been fallen prey to this unwanted situation. A protocol is initiated that the electricity bills will be calculated on the account of previous year’s month i.e. May, June, and July. In case, the data is not available then Government will go for an average. So Chota karobar Imdadi Package will remain active for a time span of 6 months initiating from May 2020. And the remuneration along with this package will be entertained during this time span.
The Nation: It is appropriate to announce that the Ministry of Industries and Production declared this Relief Package with proper interconnection from SMEDA (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority).
So if you are a small, micro and medium scale business owner and looking forward to avail this package then you have to give in your pre-paid electricity bills for the past three months.
Hammad Azhar shared that all the four provinces of Pakistan including Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir will be felicitous from “Chota Karobar Imdadi Package”. In addition to it, the package will benefit 10.7 million households in the country, out of 60 million households in total.
COVID-19 Relief Package for Daily Wage Earners or Laborers:
Due to the increasing number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan, all the companies either huge scale or small scale are now working remotely in order to cope with this COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, most of the factories, industries, retail outlets, and production houses are suffering from huge losses due to this lockdown situation in Pakistan. So this package will be a benefit for those who have been unemployed due to COVID-19 pandemic. Those unemployed personnel will get PKR 12,000 in installments; further details would be shared on the website.
Hammad Azhar told in a press conference on 27th April 2020 that the amount of PKR75 Billion has been allocated for the laborers who got serious repercussions amid COVID-19 pandemic in terms of labor. The amount worth PKR12000 will be given to those laborers who didn’t get that amount previously from Government Ehsass Emergency Cash Program. This initiative will cover at least 4 to 6 million deserving daily wagers or laborers. He further added that Government is going to deploy an online portal for the registration of laborers or daily wagers. The registration process is quite simple and hardly takes 2 to 3 minutes. After the data has been collected through registration, Ehsas Program filters will be run that would target the amount.
It is appropriate to mention that more than 4 to 6 million daily wagers and laborers will get a huge benefit from this package in addition to 1,2000000 recipients from the Ehsas Program. In Ehsas program more than 12 million houses have already privileged with PKR 12,000.
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