Dr. Sania Nishtar said that payment process under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program will be start from Wednesday 8th April for supporting the vulnerable segments of society, affected by lockdown due to Coronavirus threat.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr. Sania Nishtar said that Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program was launched to support the daily wagers and piece-rate workers after lockdown in Pakistan due to the ongoing Coronavirus crisis.
This program will help the deserving people from all the four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan, through allocating quota as per census. She added that Punjab will contribute Rs700,000 and Sindh Rs250,000 from their own budget in this program.
Dr. Sania Nishtar told that the four million people will get benefit from Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program.
She talked about the details that the deserving ones can send SMS to 8171 to check their eligibility status. They will be informed on how to collect money, if they are found eligible. If they are not recognized in the database, they will be directed to contact their respective district administration.
She further said there will be three types of responses to people’s SMS seeking cash assistance, which include eligible, ineligible, and contact to your respective district administration.
She informed that employees of provincial and federal governments were not eligible for the assistance. Currently we have database of employees of provincial and federal governments, Railways, Pakistan Post, and BISP, while data of autonomous bodies will hopefully be available in next 24 hours.
She talked about mode of payments that deserving families would get cash assistance of 12,000 rupees after biometric verification through over 18,065 sale points or retail shops of Habib Bank Limited and Bank Al-Falah across Pakistan. Cash under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program would be given on name of male member of the family.
Dr.Sania Nishtar thanks to the department’s including National Database Registration Authority, Federal Board of Revenue, State Bank of Pakistan and others for providing their support to make this initiative a success.
The beneficiaries of this program will be finalized through involving proper scrutinizing mechanisms like data analytics, wealth profiling, average monthly bills, travelling history etc.
She said the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program will help 12 million families by providing them financial assistance of Rs12,000 per family and the total budget approved for this initiative is Rs144 billion.
She told that the budget could be increased in the coming days depending on the rise in demand. This program is one of the biggest social safety net initiatives in the history of the Pakistan for disbursement of cash assistance among the needy at this critical time when social distancing measures are unavoidable.