Web portal launched for ‘Kafaalat’ beneficiaries

Ag APP

Islamabad : Safeguarding measures to resolve payment issues being encountered by recipients of Ehsaas Kafaalat, a web-portal has been opened by Ehsaas to receives complaints of biometric failures.

Officially, Kafaalat cash transfers under Ehsaas commenced countrywide earlier this week and within less than a week, the new portal has been opened online to solicit applications of Kafaalat beneficiaries in a four-step process.

As part of the complaint mechanism, Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, staff of partnering banks, and field staff of Ehsaas will be able to create complaint applications of biometric failures by entering full name, CNIC number and contact number of beneficiary along with his or her own contact number to facilitate easy tracking and follow-up. With the submission of online application, the portal instantaneously auto-generates the unique reference number for each Kafaalat applicant.

During her visit to Hazro campsite on Thursday, SAPM Dr. Sania Nishtar took to twitter and said, “Based on field insights, we are opening biometric failure complaints web-portal. I learnt about importance of WhatsApp groups of DCs and ACs to get our message out to people. These simple things are transformative for the programme.”

According to Ehsaas digital payment process, the biometric verification of thumb or finger impressions is mandatory to disburse cash to Kafaalat beneficiaries. However, Ehsaas will facilitate direct payments to beneficiaries (who are facing problems in withdrawing money owing to defying biometric identification) through a supplementary payment solution.

Earlier on Saturday, Dr. Sania visited Ehsaas Kafaalat campsites in district Mianwali, where she met with women who were waiting for their turn to receive payment. She sat with them in the queue, listened to their problems, and assured easy solution to their problems.

Since the payments have begun at the start of this week, Dr. Sania and her team is in the field to gain insights for improving the quality of the massive Ehsaas Kafaalat disbursal operations. In the last 5 days, visits have been made to various campsites and ATMs in Islamabad, Attock, Rawalpindi and Mianwali to identify payment issues and provide solutions to the destitute Kafaalat women.

APP Adds: The Ehsaas’ programme has urged the families to register the special person status of their family members with the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) as soon as possible to become eligible for the Kafaalat initiative.

According to an official source, around two million families will be eligible for a monthly stipend of Rs2000 under the new ’Ehsaas Kafaalat’ Policy for Special Persons as per the decision of the government.

The special persons will be validated through the database of National Database registration Authority (NADRA).

Only persons reported in NADRA’s database as ‘a special person’ will be declared as eligible.

Each family with a special person will now get Rs2000 per month through ‘Kafaalat’ while only one benefit per family will be given.

This initiative will lead toward a disability-inclusive, and sustainable post-COVID-19 world.

The payment will be made using the existing Kafaalat payment mechanism.

Since payment is biometric based, payment to amputees will be made following the payment rules being implemented under ‘Ehsaas Kafaalat’, the source revealed.

‘Ehsaas Kafaalat’ is the government’s flagship social protection program through which it gives cash stipends of Rs2,000 monthly and bank accounts to the most deserving and poorest households across the country.

The seven million families which are currently eligible under ‘Ehsaas Kafaalat’ fall under the poverty ranking threshold of 29. This threshold is determined by the Proxy Means Test, a metric used for ascertaining eligibility ranking under the ‘Ehsaas’ system.

Under the new ‘Ehsaas Kafaalat’ for Special Persons Policy’ this threshold is being increased to 37 for such households with at least one special person. These households will now be eligible to get ‘Ehsaas Kafaalat’ cash.