Federal Finance Minister Miftah Ismail announced on Saturday the process for the deserving families to avail the subsidies on petrol and diesel under the relief program announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his address to the nation Friday.
Addressing a press conference here, the finance minister said families who are part of the Benazir Income Support Program will automatically receive Rs2000 under the “Prime Minister Sasta Petrol Sasta Diesel Scheme.”
The households that are not part of the BISP database will have to send their identity cards numbers to 786 to check their eligibility, Ismail added.
However, he clarified that the ID card number should belong to a woman as the money would only be transferred to the women head of the household.
Miftan said the government would verify the intending beneficiary and if their household income was found to be less than Rs40,000, they would get the money.
He said the subsidy amount was equal five percent of these families’ total income as according the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data, an average Pakistan spends five percent on transport.
He said the program was expected to benefit more than 14m families, out of which 7.3million were already registered under BISP. “The remaining 6.7m families will have to send the message to 786 [to avail the subsidy].”