Zubair Qureshi
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar on Friday said there was no room in Pakistan’s largest cash-assistance programme for the poor and the needy “Ehsaas Emergency Cash Assistance Programme (category 2 and 3) and all applicants should rest assured they would get a response within 15 days.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Friday along with PTI leader and PM’s top aide Dr Shahbaz Gill, she said “Sindh is receiving the highest amount, followed by Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).” She added, “The government had cleared the lists of Benazir Income Support Programme starting from 2010.”
Dr Sania said those who were government employees or their spouses were employed by state were not eligible for the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme. Besides, she highlighted people who owned a car or had high telephone bills would also not qualify for assistance.
Those who will not receive the SMS of collecting their payments must fall under the category of government employees or those having travel history, exceeding PTCL bills, possessing cars etc.
Dr. Nishtar said the applicants must avoid unnecessary visits to the payment centers who had not received message of collecting their payments. She said the condition of renewal of expired Computerized National Identity Cards had been withdrawn to facilitate the beneficiaries.
The offices of National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) will open from Tuesday to facilitate three to four percent beneficiaries who were facing problems in their bio-metric verification, she added.
Dr Nishtar said this was the first ever welfare initiative in the history following complete transparency in identifying the deserving people and disbursing assistance.
She said over 18,00,000 existing beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Program were expelled due to having government jobs. While around 10,000 were expelled in a recent move, she added.
She said those who raised questions over the transparency of this programme must know that still majority of the BISP beneficiaries belonged to Sindh followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
Dr. Sania Nishtar said Ehsaas Information Portal had been launched with an aim to ensure transparency in the program. She said the information portal would have all the information about amount disbursement at federal and provincial level. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Shahbaz Gill said Ehsaas Cash Assistance Programme was the flagship programme of the PTI-government and had taken all the stakeholders on board while taking the decision regarding opening of mosques. To a question he said religious scholars were custodian of the mosques so it was important to take them onboard in this important decision.
He said Ehsaas programme was close to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s heart and every possible measure was being taken to provide its benefits to the most deserving people with utmost sincerity.
