City Reporter
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Dr. Sania Nishtar Wednesday announced that for the facilitation of public ‘Ehsaas Rashan Riayat SMS service would again be functional till Friday where eligible persons would get information about the process of this program.
Talking to media, she said the low-income families who want to benefit from the Ehsaas Ration program will register through this service, adding, Under the Ehsaas Rashan program, a subsidy of Rs. 1,000 a month will be granted to 20 million eligible families on the purchase of flour, pulses, cooking oil.
She said the 8171 SMS Service has been made free of charge for the public and the entire cost will be borne by Ehsaas, adding, Kiryana merchants would only allow them to register themselves through Ehsaas web portal.
When beneficiaries send their CNIC number on 8171, they will either get a message that they are eligible for the Ehsaas Rashan Riayat program and will be asked to collect money; or they will be informed that they are ineligible, or will get a “wait” instruction, she mentioned.
Replying to a question, she said till the date of Tuesday (Nov 16), around 149 million people had visited the Ehsaas web portal for the registration of the newly launched ‘Ehsaas Rashan program’ where over 40 million people were those who were successful in entering their data required.
Replying to another question, Sania Nishtar said Ehsaas has developed a digitally enabled mobile point of sale system in collaboration with the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to serve beneficiaries through a network of Karyana stores all over the country.
The customer will receive a verification code through 8171 which would be entered by the Karyana merchant in the app, she said, adding, A transparent system has been launched which would prevent corruption and other issues related to this program.
She further explained that around 21,000 shopkeepers were registered within one week for this program, adding, Karyana merchants having a valid bank account to receive the subsidy amount from any corner of the country will be eligible to register under this program after physical verification through a web portal.
Nishtar said that the government also launched a drive for the awareness and education of merchants as well as common people’s mobilization about the program where she herself is visiting cities, she added.
