PML-N to relaunch Yellow Cab Scheme: Lahore
LAHORE – The PML (N)-led Punjab government will be re-introducing much-criticised Yellow Cab Scheme, sources told TheNation on Thursday.
The Scheme (taxi service) will be brought to the fore in Punjab Budget 2011-2012, being presented on Friday (today). As per sources, unemployed youth will be given the interest free 800cc cars after depositing Rs 20,000 or maximum Rs 30,000. This has been decided to help lessen unemployment in the Punjab.
Secondly, it has also been asserted that these cabs would be used to replace rickshaws.
That is why, the scheme would be introduced in major cities of the province, including five City District Governments.
This has been pronounced publically by the PML-N bigwigs on more than one occasion that the scheme would be re-introduced since the same party in February 1992 had launched the programme, which was considered to have played a significant part in the deterioration of nationalised commercial banks. An entity, now a private sector, was virtually brought it to the brink of disaster, and its opponents considered it a political bribe for PML-N workers. However, despite catching abundant flak from the political adversaries, the N-League has gone ahead with the scheme.
Earlier, the result was a lot of NAB-ised cases. In April last year after 15 years, an accountability court acquitted former HBL president Younis Dalia in the yellow cab scheme fraud case.
However, the co-accused, former HBL senior vice president Peer Deedar Jan Sarhandi, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs 60 million.
The accused were facing charges of financial irregularities, which had caused a huge loss to the bank in the yellow cab scheme. The National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against Dalia and Sarhandi in 1996, stating that both the accused had committed a fraud of Rs 60 million in the recovery of yellow cabs. The reference was closed under the NRO, but was reopened after the Supreme Court declared the NRO null and void.
