More than 10m beneficiaries receive Rs121b assistance

Islamabad : The Ehsaas Emergency Cash payment has crossed the 10 million mark in nine weeks. More than 10 million beneficiaries have been served with Rs121 billion cash assistance since the launch of this initiative.

The programme was launched on April 9, 2020, to extend immediate cash assistance of Rs12,000 each to COVID-19 lockdown affected families. Overall, Rs144 billion will be disbursed among more than 12 million families.

In her remarks on ongoing process of Ehsaas Emergency Cash disbursement, Dr. Sania Nishtar, Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation said that with the help of district administrations of provinces, law enforcement agencies, NADRA and partner banks, the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme will meet its target to serve 12 million by the end of this month. “By the grace of Almighty Allah we have been able to achieve 10 million mark in cash disbursement within a period of nine weeks.”

Cumulatively, so far, 10.019 million deserving families under categories I, II and III of Ehsaas Emergency Cash program have collected financial assistance of Rs.12, 000 each that sums up to Rs121.67 billion. This amount has been disbursed among the daily wagers, piece-rate workers and labourers till June 11, 2020 since the beginning of the payment operation under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program on April 9. To facilitate the beneficiaries amid Covid-19 pandemic, Ehsaas has set up more than 10,000 payment sites across the country.

As per provincial and regional breakdown available on the online Ehsaas disbursements portal, as of June 10, an amount of Rs52.70 billion among 43.42 million beneficiaries in Punjab, Rs36.63 billion among 30.34 million beneficiaries in Sindh and Rs.22.69 billion has been distributed among 18.45 million beneficiaries of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Till June 11, an amount of Rs2.12 billion has been disbursed among more than 0.172 million beneficiaries in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Rs6.5 billion among 0.497 million beneficiaries of Baluchistan, Rs0.88 billion among more than 70,000 beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan and Rs.0.56 billion among more than 46,000 beneficiaries of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).