During the last 18 months, CM Punjab Sardar Usman Khan Buzdar has proved his capabilities by taking landmark decisions, obvious to the naked eye, but the purblind and myopic might not notice. It might not be possible to recount his success stories, but reference to recent decisions would suffice.
Addressing a press conference some days back, CM Punjab, Usman Buzdar, announced reopening the textile industry value chain in the larger interest of the country’s exports and much-needed employment in these testing times.
Last week, Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar, in a high-powered meeting on government plan for Punjab’s future economic growth strategy in response to Post-COVID-19, launched ‘RISE Punjab’ Punjab Government’s Social Protection and Economic Revival Response for Post COVID 19. During the meeting Chief Minister discussed the vision of Prime Minister of Pakistan in combating COVID-19 and Government’s priority of providing immediate relief to the people in distress.
The holistic framework of ‘RISE Punjab’ focuses on six sectors, which include economic recovery and stability, social protection, health, substantial improvements in the governance capabilities, education and human capital development and risk management.
There has been a lot of speculations by some analysts as to why Imran Khan picked up Usman Buzdar as chief minister of Punjab when he had better choices.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, had selected him after a lot of deliberations, and made it clear many a times that Usman Buzdar was going to stay as CM Punjab.
Usman Buzdar is a soft-spoken person; who keeps a low profile, and the other ministers also have liberty of work without any hurdles from the executive. His critics and detractors have been giving cut off dates that he would be removed because he failed to perform.
They also criticized Prime Minister Imran Khan for selecting a political novice as the head of the province with more than 120 million population, which decides the fate of the political parties in the country. But despite the constant media onslaught and criticism from opposition parties, Usman Buzdar continues to survive.
Last month, Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar gave approval to provide direct financial aid to deserving families in Ramadan-ul-Mubarak. He directed to take effective measures to stabilize the prices, and vowed that no one will be allowed to create artificial price-hike and administrative measures will be taken to provide essential items at fixed rates. He also announced to give one-month additional salary to doctors and other staff engaged in the treatment of coronavirus patients. Soon after assuming office, Usman Buzdar took measures to ensure equitable development of Punjab; and in his first budget it was mentioned that the money allocated for projects in South Punjab could not be used development projects elsewhere.
In just one year, the Punjab government had set up first state of the art technical university in DG Khan. Last month, he emphasized that the industries allowed to resume work would have to follow their SOPs..
Chief Minister Punjab visited Depalpur, Chishtian and Sahiwal to inspect the arrangements for coronavirus patients as well as wheat procurement. At the outset, the CM visited THQ Hospital Depalpur to inspect the isolation wards for coronavirus patients and dialysis centre.
Talking on this occasion, he reiterated that sufficient resources are being made available to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. He also appreciated the services of doctors and paramedics. He also inspected the wheat procurement centre where farmers thanked him for the arrangements. The CM assured that farmers’ interest will be protected. He informed that the restriction of gardawari has been done away with. Farmers should not face any difficulty, and action will be initiated in case of any complaint, he warned. He directed to follow the relevant SOPs in letter and spirit. The CM had also chaired a high-level meeting in Okara to review arrangements relating to coronavirus situation, wheat procurement and eradication of dengue. The CM directed the parliamentarians and district officers to work hard to provide relief to the affected persons and asked them to ensure the best arrangements.