Under the guidance of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the government relief program, Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme, disbursements to beneficiaries under category-3, commenced on May 3 and a total of 163,419 category 3 beneficiaries that were identified through district administration have been paid out Rs. 1.961 billion.
The Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr. Sania Nishtar remarked, “The emergency cash transfers are providing purchasing power to labour class to buy food rations and meet their needs.”
Simultaneously, category 2 beneficiaries who entered the program through 8171 SMS service will also receiving payments that are under process. The deadline to apply for this program was 19th April and the eligibility criteria is being identified through the databases of the National Socioeconomic Registry 2010 and 2020. So far, 2.945 million category 2 beneficiaries have been served Ehsaas Emergency Cash worth Rs. 35.347 billion and payments are still ongoing.
While payments to category 1 that includes regular Kafaalat beneficiaries have almost been completed with Rs. 54.303 billion paid out to 4.403 million beneficiaries. Dr. Sania Nishtar added, “All applicants of Ehsaas Emergency Cash program who fall under categories II and III will get the final SMS messages from 8171 regarding payment or rejection based on their eligibility by the end of the current week.”
With the stats provided by Ehsaas Portal, as of yesterday, an amount of Rs.17.229 billion has been distributed among 1.393 beneficiaries of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rs. 38.498 billion among 3.161 million beneficiaries in Punjab and Rs.29.025 billion among 2.401 million beneficiaries in Sindh.
Till yesterday, an amount of Rs.1.578 billion has been disbursed among 126,414 beneficiaries in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Rs. 4.277 billion among 349,517 beneficiaries of Baluchistan, Rs. 0.649 billion among 50,834 beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan and Rs.0.353 among 29,058 beneficiaries of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
Setting up 10,000 payment sites across the country aiming to facilitate safe and fully biometric payments, Ehsaas Programme has successfully been able to observe social distancing criterion set up by the government.
This amount has been disbursed among the daily wagers, piece-rate workers, and laborers in a period of one month amounting to the financial assistance of Rs.12,000 each for deserving families.
