Rs12,000 to be given per family via 'Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme': Dr Sania Nishtar

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar said Tuesday she would hold a press briefing during this week with regard to the 'Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme', which she claimed would benefit 67 million people around Pakistan.

"I will do a press conference this week to explain how the “#Ehsaas Emergency Cash and SMS program” will be implemented," she said on Twitter.

Earlier in the day, Dr Nishtar announced that the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme had been approved for 10 million people, wherein Rs12,000 would be provided per family. In a Twitter thread, she noted that 67 million people in total would benefit from the new plan.

"Daily wage earners are our top priority, whose livelihood has been badly affected by the corona-induced economic downturn," she said, adding that the affectees were put into three categories — 4.5 million existing Ehsaas Kafaalat beneficiaries, all of whom were women, 3 million affectees to be identified through the national socioeconomic database, and around 2.5 million to be identified through the Ehsaas SMS route.

Eligibility for the second category, the special assistant added, would be "relaxed upwards" as the people who previously earned up to Rs20,000 and "have now suffered economic shock and are without livelihood" would be helped". These people were not currently enrolled in the database, she clarified.

Dr Nishtar underlined that data analytics would be used to ensure that the system was "not abused".