New rail project to reduce Karachi-Lahore travel time
attock — Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said the new Main Line-1 railway network would ensure a massive economic activity in the country along with creation of employment opportunities.
“For the first time, Pakistan is undergoing a huge development in the railway sector in the shape of Main Line-1 project being implemented in collaboration with China,” the prime minister said while speaking at the inauguration of Hassan Abdal Railway Station — renovated and reconstructed after 127 years — in Attock.
He said the Main Line-1 project will allow people to travel from Karachi to Lahore in just seven hours from around 18 hours at present.
The prime minister said the role of the railways is crucial in vision for “Naya (new) Pakistan” because it is a cheap and comfortable way of travel.
The government has spent Rs300 million to reconstruct and renovate Hassan Abdal Railway Station. It has been upgraded to two floors with a canteen and has clean water supply.
The prime minister said in his Naya
Pakistan, all citizens regardless of their religion had equal right to practise their faith. He said the upgradation of Hassan Abdal Railway Station, which was near Gurdwara Punja Sahib, would facilitate Sikh pilgrims.
Health initiative launched
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday formally launched a free healthcare services programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that would directly benefit about 40 million people, including 6.05 million families of the province.
The prime minister also distributed health cards (sehat sahulat cards) among poor people to formally inaugurate the programme in the province.
The prime minister was earlier given a detailed briefing about salient features of the programme and was told that it would cover over 40 million population in Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
Provincial Minister Shaukat Yousafzai informed the prime minister that the people of six districts of Malakand division — Chitral Upper, Chitral Lower, Dir Upper, Dir Lower, Malakand and Swat — would now get free medical, surgical and diagnostic services in any designated public or private hospital in the country.
He said all major ailments like accident and emergency, diabetes, kidney problems including dialysis and transplant, Hepatitis B and C, all types of cancers, heart and vascular diseases were covered under the programme.
The minister said that each beneficiary family is entitled to free health services up to Rs1 million per year.
The Khyber Pakthunkhwa government has allocated Rs18 billion for the programme and signed a contract with the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan to facilitate the poor people.
The programme was initially launched during the first tenure of the PTI government in 2015 in Malakand, Mardan, Chitral and Kohat districts as a pilot project and was later extended to other districts keeping in view its benefits for the poor people.
Under the previous healthcare programme Rs540,000 were allocated for a family in one year. However, the amount has now been increased to Rs1 million. —