Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Sania Nishtar who leads the Ehsaas programme paid a surprise visit to the Mandi More Panah Gah together with DC Islamabad and his team to review the facilities being provided by the government to people in need. Dr. Nishtar took round of the facility and interacted with the people staying there. She talked to them, listened to their issues and assured them full cooperation of Ehsaas in their critical time. Free meal is served to 1,500 people at the Panah Gah everyday. She reassured them that the Ehsaas would take similar steps to improve their economic conditions. She also appreciated the efforts of local administration for managing the Panah Gah.
The Special Assistant shared that Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed all the Cabinet Ministers to visit Panah Gahs and ensure that nobody stays shelterless and hungry in this extreme cold weather. Adding further, she shared, “Ehsaas is committed to ensure that Panah Gahs serve the needy and poor across the country.” The people, labourers and needy travelers living in the Panah Gah, were happy to find Dr. Nishtar among them.
Later, Dr Sania Nishtar, paid surprise visits to Islamabad based branchless banking retailer outlets of BISP’s partner commercial banks in Blue Area, F-8 and G-9 areas of Islamabad. The visit aimed to check the working of their officials while dealing with registered deserving women. Recently, BISP has introduced quarterly payments to women through biometric verification at branchless banking retailers. She sat with the women present at the outlets to collect cash grants and discussed with them the problems they were facing while receiving their compensations.
It is worth mentioning here that Dr. Nishtar visited all these sites as a surprise and interacted with the public and official staffers present there. She spent time interacting with the staff at the banking outlets and women, asking about the quality of service. This was part of her visits to enquire about the quality of Ehsaas programmes, witnessing and observing on-the-ground situation without prior intimation.
“The purpose of these surprise visits was to subsequently check the progress of the ongoing programmes and also to speak to the people, knowing about their grievances. These surprise visits have been institutionalized in Ehsaas and will guide us in improving the quality of delivery of all multisectoral social welfare programmes under Ehsaas”, she commented while talking to the media.
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