Since last Friday May 8, 2020 Ehsaas has commenced disbursements to beneficiaries under category 3 of the Ehsaas Emergency Cash program. Till today, 163,419 category 3 beneficiaries identified through district administration have been paid out Rs. 1.961 billion. Concurrently, payments to category 2 beneficiaries, who entered the program through 8171 SMS service, are also underway. So far, 2.945 million category 2 beneficiaries have been served Ehsaas Emergency Cash worth Rs. 35.347 billion and payments are still ongoing. Category-2 recipients had expressed demand through the 8171 SMS service that closed on April 19, 2020 and their eligibility is being ascertained through the databases of the National Socioeconomic Registry 2010 and 2020.
Dr. Sania Nishtar, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation remarked, “The emergency cash transfers are providing purchasing power to labour class to buy food rations and meet their needs.” Talking about the delivery of final messages to applicants, she added, “All applicants of Ehsaas Emergency Cash program who fall under categories II and III will get the final SMS messages from 8171 regarding payment or rejection based on their eligibility by the end of current week.”
Payments to category 1 that includes regular Kafaalat beneficiaries have almost been completed with Rs. 54.303 billion paid out to 4.403 million beneficiaries.
Cumulatively, so far, 7.512 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 roughly Rs. 91.611 billion. This amount has been disbursed among the daily wagers, piece-rate workers and labourers till May 11, 2020 since the beginning of the payment operation under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program on April 9. Avoiding long queues and overcrowding, Ehsaas has set up more than 10,000 payment sites across the country aiming to facilitate safe and fully biometric payments worth Rs. 144 billion to 12 million deserving families.
According to provincial and regional breakdown available on the online Ehsaas disbursements portal, as of today, an amount of Rs.17.229 billion has been distributed among 1.393 beneficiaries of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rs. 38.498 billion among 3.161 million beneficiaries in Punjab and Rs.29.025 billion among 2.401 million beneficiaries in Sindh.
Till today, an amount of Rs.1.578 billion has been disbursed among 126,414 beneficiaries in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Rs. 4.277 billion among 349,517 beneficiaries of Baluchistan, Rs. 0.649 billion among 50,834 beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan and Rs.0.353 among 29,058 beneficiaries of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
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