Zubair Qureshi
On the eve of the World Poverty Day that is being observed across the world on Sunday (today) Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation Senator Dr Sania Nishtar on Saturday launched ‘National Data Exchange Platform’ for the Ehsaas’ National Socioeconomic Registry 2021.
With the Ehsaas National Socioeconomic Registry 2021 survey stands almost complete, NDEP will facilitate data sharing and data access services for all executing agencies stewarded by Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division.
Later, this service will also be extended to provinces and other government agencies implementing Ehsaas programs as well.
Speaking to media about the launch of NDEP, Sania said, “Ehsaas NDEP will be a gamechanger in transforming social protection and poverty reduction programs in the country.
In the past, there was no way of one government agency knowing what support an individual or a family was getting from another government agency.
Some families with connections and influence were getting multiple benefits and other more deserving ones were getting none.”
She further said, “But now with Ehsaas NDEP in place, the executing agencies in ecosystem of Ehsaas will be able to see what benefits an individual or a household is getting by simply punching in the computerised national identity number of an individual.
More importantly, the benefits which each family and individual is receiving from each organization will also be visible to all agencies across Ehsaas programs.”
This data integration of Ehsaas survey will also facilitate adoption of the Ehsaas One Window targeting Policy that Prime Minister approved in the last quarter.
It will ultimately save programme cost, reduce redundancy, optimize beneficiary targeting, and will also enable efficient and effective policy decisions, planning and implementation.