Zubair Qureshi
Islamabad
Preparations for the new Kifalat cash-transfer programme are well underway at the Pakistan Post Foundation with eligibility letters ready to be delivered to the first phase of beneficiaries across the country. The process of preparing the official letters for distribution was inspected during a visit by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Sania Nishtar and Federal Minister for Communications and Postal Services, Murad Saeed.
They inspected how the official envelopes were printed, stuffed with letters and sorted into geographical areas, and then handed to the Postmen for delivery to those families that need support the most. “The new Kifalat programme will benefit millions of women and families across the country and these letters are now ready to go out to the first wave of beneficiaries,” commented Dr. Nishtar during the visit. “All parts of the government have a role to play in ending poverty and creating a welfare state, and I was impressed by the dedication of the postal service in this effort.”
The Kifalat is a key policy of the Ehsaas poverty alleviation programme, which is working to lift people out of poverty and create a welfare state. The dispatch of letters to eligible households is the second phase of a five-stage process to implement the Kifalatthat will include an SMS campaign to identify missing households and NADRA desk registration of any missing households. The first phase, a poverty survey and analysis of the data, is in the process of being completed across the country.
The Kifalat will be launched by the Prime Minister at a ceremony on Friday, 31 January. It is an updated and innovative cash-transfer programme that will empower the poorest women, giving many of them their own bank account for the first time and deploying the latest biotechnology to protect them from abuse. The full details of the Kifalat will be announced at the launch on Friday January 31.
