The Ehsaas Emergency Cash advertisements appeared in newspapers today and there was a sudden surge in the number of incoming calls in the Ehsaas call centre. To get better sense of what callers were asking about Ehsaas Emergency Cash, Dr. Sania Nishtar, who leads the Ehsaas program sat with call centre operators today and interacted with callers on the phone. “I wanted to hear first-hand about people’s complaints pertaining to Ehsaas Emergency Cash distribution, so that we can make improvements in the program in real time”. On average 1,500 calls are being received on daily basis in the call centre and this number has increased since the advisement appeared.
Mostly people were asking about when the payment messages would be received; millions of people have received messages stating that they are eligible but that they need to wait for the “payment message”. In this regard, people want to know what the timelines is, and the Call centre is proving very useful in giving out details. Dr. Sania was briefed that some of those who have received regrets want to make appeals. Family members of eligible households whose heads of family had died wanted to know how they could be helped. Staff in the Call Centre is regularly briefed about the program so that they can answer questions with clarity. Dr. Sania thanked Call Centre staff for their dedication and hard work and spent a lot of time with the staff to get insights and boost their morale.
“It has been 4 days, since Ehsaas started one-off cash distribution of Rs. 12,000 each to the low-income households in all provinces of Pakistan including GB and AJK. By 3:30 pm today, Rs. 22.466 billion has been disbursed to 1.77 million individuals.” Dr. Nishtar briefed the media about on-the ground progress of the emergency cash payments.
Ehsaas Emergency Cash program is the largest ever social protection and relief operation in the history of Pakistan aimed to help alleviate sufferings of low-income households, who have been distressed by the coronavirus shut down across the country. The government has deployed biometric technology along with other COVID-19 precautionary measures, to ensure the safe and transparent delivery of emergency cash.
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