In a quest to draw on lessons from the field, Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Sania Nishtar paid an impromptu visit to Ehsaas Kafaalat registration desks set up by NADRA in Haripur. The visit aimed to overlook the self-registration process for deserving women in Kafaalat through on spot checking and feedback from people and officials. Despite heavy rains, the visit saw long queues of women who had gathered to get themselves registered under the Prime Minister’s Kafaalat program under Ehsaas framework.
With the official launch of Ehsaas Kafaalat program by the Prime Minister on January 31, 2020- the Kafaalat registration desks have been opened up under first phase across 15 districts of Pakistan including Haripur. The desks will remain functional for 6 months to facilitate beneficiaries. As part of Ehsaas strategy, implementation of Kafaalat program is linked to the readiness of Ehsaas survey National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER). The Ehsaas NSER survey is currently underway in Ehsaas and will be completed this year in three phases. To ensure inclusion of needy women in the survey process, Ehsaas has mobilized NADRA’s fully equipped self-registration centres in all districts across Pakistan linked to the district wise completion of survey.
Dr. Nishtar stood with the applicant women in the queue who had arrived for Kafaalat self-registration, took round of the facility and interacted with women and officials to enquire about the current applicant care process and arrangements. She instructed the concerned officials to facilitate the women in registration process so that they do not have to wait for long hours. Dr. Nishtar took keen interest in getting their feedback as well to improve the entire registration process. She was observed to be fully involved in on-the-ground interaction with needy women and guided them about the process to come under the fold of Ehsaas Kafaalat program.
While talking to women who had gathered at the desk site, Dr. Nishtar reiterated, “Ehsaas Kafaalat is the government's safety net program through which it will give cash stipends and bank counts to 7 million most deserving and poorest women all over the country. The program will also improve access of women to mobile phones.” She then shared that “Ehsaas firmly believes that field visits and spot checks are very crucial to factor in voices of needy women to improve Kafaalat operations. We will ensure that lessons from this on-the -ground consultation will definitely be drawn in the results-based implementation of Ehsaas Kafaalat.”
She informed women that applications submitted through this self-registration drive will then be countered through data analytics to ensure inclusion and exclusion errors. Dr. Nishtar also issued directions to increase the number of NADRA registration desks at registration centers to better facilitate the people.
Later, she visited Alfalah Bank’s alfa pay outlets in Haripur to check the results of newly introduced payment digital payment system for Kafaalat beneficiaries. At the visited sites, the beneficiaries were collecting the newly released trance of Rs. 9000 that includes the stipend of RS 5000 for the quarter July-September 2019 and monthly stipend of Rs. 2000 each for the months of January and February 2020. She was glad to see the women getting full payments through a biometrically enabled digital payment system.
Beneficiary women were grateful to Ehsaas for introducing the biometrically enabled payment system to ease the payment process. The system allows Kafalat beneficiaries to stay safe from fraudulent deductions.
