In the face of obnoxiously high, pocket pinching inflation, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Lahore has begun a new welfare program lead by Lahore President Mian Mehmood ur Rashid and Welfare President Javed Butt.
The program envisages teaming with established tandoor in the lower class areas of the city and selling roti and naan for less than half the cost. Roti are being sold for 2 rupees and Naan for 3.
The first tandoor was launched today, August 27, 2008 in the congested run-down locality of Dubanpura. Chairman Khan visited the area to inaugurate the project amidst massive applause.
“Inflation has broken the back of the common person and those sitting in parliament cannot seem to find the time to help the poor,” said the Chairman.
“Tandoor like these will be opened across Pakistan to show that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is committed to help fight the dreadful effects of inflation.”
According to Mian Mehmud ur Rashid, the idea was plucked out of the books of the AKP (former Welfare) party in Turkey which had begun to sell bread at subsidized rates in the localities of Ankara and Istanbul after the country was hit with hyper inflation in the mid-1980’s. Places selling cheap bread became so popular in Turkey, that private bakeries ended up going out of business. It was schemes like these which helped propel the AKP to become the largest and most popular party in Turkish politics. PTI Lahore leadership and the party’s central executives feel the model can be replicated in Pakistan as affordable roti is the need of the hour.
Between now and the end of Ramzan, four tandoor will become operational. Once they are successful, the ‘Sasta Tandoor’ scheme will spread across the localities of Lahore and Pakistan.
Because of the repute of Chairman Khan, many concerned citizens have come forward to provide free flour for this scheme. As 60% of the cost of running the ‘Sasta Tandoor’ is the cost of the flour, the scheme has potential to be an enormous success.
PTI encourages all its members to help out in this effort – be it in the form of organizing donating flour or manpower to oversee the individual projects. This will show to the people that even though Tehreek-e-Insaf is not in parliament, it is making efforts to help alleviate hardships of the downtrodden – more so than those in the corridors of power.
Queries can be forwarded to welfare@insaf.pk
2 comments:
Interesting idea ... yeh tandoor kitne lagte hai country mei and ager jitni requirement hai utne lagaye jaye to tandoor walo ko nuqsan ho ga ... Laikin ager na lagaye jaye to it would not do the magic .. on national level... anyways I like it
I commend Imran for starting something like this ... we all need to support this. I do not agree that there will be 'nuqsan' for the existing tandoor walas.
They can continue to sell to whoever can afford to buy roti at the price they are selling. We cannot sit back and not support this just because there is someone who will go out of business. What the hell is wrong with us?
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