SAHIWAL: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif handed out the first laptops and Honhaar merit scholarships of the year at the University of Sahiwal on Thursday, announced that the province’s student electric-bike scheme would formally launch on Nov 5, and used the stage to accuse the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of wrecking its own government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The ceremony, for students from Sahiwal, Okara and Pakpattan, was the first of a series planned across Punjab’s nine divisions in October and November. Maryam said no minister, politician or official had been able to secure a laptop or scholarship through sifarish. “Merit has triumphed and sifarish has been defeated,” she said. Nurses and students of religious seminaries had been included for the first time, and a quota had been set aside for students from other provinces.
She ordered work to begin on a girls’ hostel at the university and directed officials to restore scholarships for nurses.
On the e-bike scheme, the chief minister said 1.3 million students had registered and 600,000 applications had been received, but only 100,000 bikes would be provided for now because, she said, the federal government had withdrawn funds from Punjab. In September the province had announced 125,000 bikes; students are to pay about Rs3,028 a month with no down payment. Most recipients would be young women, she said, and free driving lessons would be offered.
The federal finance ministry has not commented on her claim about withdrawn funds.
Maryam listed her government’s record: one million Kisan Cards and 30,000 tractors for farmers, 300,000 acres of state land for landless cultivators, 700 electric buses running with 3,000 more on order and a Rs20 fare, a ’Work for Punjab’ internship scheme paying graduates Rs60,000 to Rs65,000 a month, and the ’Parwaaz Card’ offering air tickets to skilled workers heading abroad. Clinic on Wheels had served 20 million people, she said, and livestock theft had fallen by 80 to 90 per cent. The Lahore Times could not independently verify all the figures.
She also took aim at the PTI after the imposition of governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “This is the first long march I have seen that consumed its own government,” she said, adding that Punjab was in the race for artificial intelligence while KP was “stuck in the Stone Age”. She said she was saddened by the deaths of children in the Peshawar school roof collapse.
The PTI was not immediately available to respond. The party has called the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa unconstitutional and has challenged it in court.
The chief minister said she had travelled despite poor weather because the students were waiting. “Every child in Punjab is as dear to me as my own sons and daughters,” she said.
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