Islamabad: /DNA/ – The present government has the intention to establish a centralized hub for letting the corporate organisations combine their resources and work together to carry out the uplift work in the sectors that urgently deserve development.
This was stated by State Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Farrukh Habib, while speaking as the chief guest at the 14th Annual International CSR (corporate social responsibility) Summit and Awards-2022 organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH).
He said that holding the CSR summit by assembling under one roof representatives of leading companies was one major step towards providing a common forum to different key players in the corporate sector to connect with each other and strive collectively for the shared social uplift goals for the betterment of the society.
The State Minister said that human resource development and capacity building of the youth should be one major area of focus by the corporate sector for doing CSR-related work.
He said the companies whose profits maximised during the last one year and earned billions of rupees were under the obligation to increase their spending for the progress and uplift of the backward areas.
He said the present government gave value to and extend utmost support to the corporate sector entities doing efforts and spending their resources for the uplift of the downtrodden communities.
He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan also fully understood the importance of CSR owing to his extensive social welfare work in the fields of education and health.
Habib eulogized the philanthropic services of the companies in the far-flung areas of the country that didn’t have the basic necessities of life and infrastructure to carry out such work.  
He said the present government initiated its Ehsaas flagship programme to implement its vision to transform Pakistan into a welfare state. He informed the audience of the programme that a massive allocation of Rs 260 billion had been reserved to carry out work related to 34 different initiatives related to the Ehsaas programme.
The State Minister said that a major initiative of the Ehsaas programme stood for providing 92,000 scholarships to the students of deserving families to get higher education in the public sector universities.
He said the universal health insurance coverage was another major drive of the present government to fulfil the basic needs of the people.
Also speaking on the occasion, Federal Railways Minister, Azam Khan Swati, appreciated the efforts of the corporate sector to serve humanity at large and lessen the miseries of the underprivileged communities.
He said the work of the corporate organisations in the areas of health, education, environmental protection, and other social sector deserved special praise.
He said the corporate entities through their CSR drive had become a partner with the present government’s drive to transform the lives of common people.
Swati said the present government had initiated the drive to improve the working of Railways in accordance with the principles of the corporate sector so to ensure the welfare of the railway workers and their families.
Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam, told the audience about the initiatives of the present government to revolutionize the agricultural sector.
He emphasized that the youth in the country should be imparted proper education and skills for enabling them to play their due role in the advancement of the national economy.
Chairman of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), Tauseef H Farooqi, said the drive launched by the NEPRA encouraged the power sector companies to invest Rs 4.5 billion as part of their CSR-related obligations.
He said the CSR activities by the power sector companies had benefited 13.7 million people, created 24,000 jobs through 390 different welfare projects.
He said that owing to the efforts of the NEPRA every power distribution company had now a separate HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) Department for ensuring the safety of their employees.
Naeem Qureshi, NFEH President, in his welcome speech said that his non-governmental organisations had been extensively doing tree plantation drives as a partner of the Clean and Green Pakistan campaign of the present government.