‘Rs49.685 billion distributed among 4.14 million deserving families’

Islamabad: During last 9 days, 4.14 million deserving families have withdrawn Rs49.685 billion cash under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme with Punjab topping the list of provinces with most beneficiaries.

According to statistics released by the Programme Head and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishter, number of beneficiary families in Punjab is 1.6 million whereas Rs19.743 billion have been released to these families with Rs12,000 for each family.

Following Punjab is Sindh where 1.4 million families have been benefitted under the program with the release of Rs16.94 billion in last 9 days. The number of families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 873 thousand that have received Rs10.485 billion and in Balochistan, around 122 thousand beneficiary with Rs1.46 billion disbursement. In AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, around 60 thousand and 19 thousand families received the emergency cash respectively. In AJK, Rs72.308 million were disbursed whereas in Gilgit-Baltistan the amount distributed was Rs23.45 million. Under Ehsaas Emergency Cash program, the government committed to support 12 million families with one time cash assistance of Rs12,000 per family. A total budget of Rs144 billion has been allocated for this purpose. The government has committed that if the demand for Ehsaas Emergency Cash will be higher, additional resources might be earmarked.

The programme commenced disbursements to the second category of beneficiaries on Thursday. All of them have been enrolled through 8171 SMS service. They were declared eligible based on their profiling checks in the national socio-economic database as well as the wealth profiling checks.

The Ehsaas Emergency Cash payment notifications will go to new Ehsaas Emergency Cash recipients registered through 8171 in a staggered manner over the next seven days. The last day to apply for the Ehsaas Emergency Cash is April 19 till midnight. In the initial batch, women will get payments and in next batches, men will start getting payments.

In her tweets on Thursday, SAPM Dr Sania Nishter clarified that if any SMS is received in the name of deceased person, it means that the death of that person has not been registered with NADRA. She further clarified that those who possess CNIC that have expired on September 1, 2019, can receive the amount on producing the old CNIC at the Ehsaas centre.

Responding to questions regarding biometric verification, she tweeted that if biometric verification of any approved recipient is rejected at the Ehsaas centres, they can verify that from the nearest NADRA office.