The Punjab government will spend over Rs 14.2 billion on the welfare-oriented schemes for women in the province during the current financial year.
Addressing the concluding session of a two-day workshop held in connection with “Gender Responsive Budgeting” at a local hotel on Wednesday, Strengthening Poverty Reduction Strategy Monitoring (SPRSM) Project Manager, Muhammad Zaman Wattoo said that the Punjab government was paying special attention towards women development to make them economically self-reliant. In this regard, Muslim countries like Turkey and Malaysia were the beacon of light for us, he observed.
He said the Punjab government would set up new universities for women in Faisalabad, Sialkot, Multan and Bahawalpur in the future. The Punjab Planning and Development Board and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) had been jointly working on poverty eradication and providing economic self-sufficiency for the women of Punjab province, he informed.
Wattoo said that working women hostels were being set up at tehsil level at a cost of Rs 250 million. Besides, daycare centers would also be established at a cost of Rs 100 million for facilitating the working women in Punjab, he added. Moreover, new buses for women colleges were being provided at a cost of Rs 1 billion across the Punjab by the government. The Punjab government had also allocated Rs 4.5 billion for mother and child healthcare, he said.
