RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Peoples Party leader and president of the Progressive Welfare Organisation, Muhammad Aamir Siddiqui, has said that encouraging youth and introducing them to the skills required for the future is essential.
In a statement issued in connection with World Skills Day, he said education and technical education were highly important for the bright future of the next generation and for enhancing skills. He added that, in the present era, higher education had become a very difficult stage for children.
Aamir Siddiqui said the country must prepare its youth for success by aligning them with modern technology and contemporary requirements. Along with education, he said, young people should be provided opportunities to benefit from quality technical and professional skills so they could become skilled and empowered.
He said such steps would help improve the future of the country and put Pakistan on the path of economic development.
The PPP leader said poverty, inflation and unemployment had made life difficult for the people. He said that due to rising prices, it had become hard for ordinary citizens to make ends meet, adding that normal economic activity was not possible unless the “inflation tsunami” was checked.
He urged the government to take serious measures and move towards providing relief to the people. He said the continuous increase in the prices of basic public utilities and necessities, including electricity, gas, LPG, petrol, medicines and food items, had made it difficult for parents to provide higher and technical education to their children.
Aamir Siddiqui said petrol and electricity prices were falling on the people like a bolt of lightning. He said electricity bills had shocked the public, and people were being forced to sell household items to pay heavy bills even during severe hot weather, when they could not use fans.
He criticised those, in his words, sitting in cool rooms and using free electricity, saying the people had been trapped in the cycle of electricity units. He said the common man was being crushed under inflation to meet IMF demands, while, according to him, all sacrifices were being demanded from the public and free facilities and privileges remained available to the elite and bureaucracy.
He said that after the approval of the budget, prices of food items had risen sharply. He mentioned sugar, rice, pulses and especially packaged milk, saying there appeared to be no check on their prices and that food prices were touching the sky.
Aamir Siddiqui called upon the government to immediately move towards cheaper sources such as water reservoirs for electricity generation. He also urged the authorities to provide immediate relief to the people through electricity and petrol under agreements with countries such as Iran and Russia, so that inflation could be checked and the public could benefit from genuine relief.
He said such measures would help advance the process of development and prosperity in the country. He concluded with the slogan: “Pakistan first, and Pakistan always live long.”
