Special Assistant to PM on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr Sania Nishtar has said that the federal government will provide cash assistance of Rs12,000 each to over 12 million deserving families under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a news conference in Islamabad on Sunday, Sania Nishtar said an SMS service to get the assistance is continuing and we have received millions of messages on 8171. She said that the PTI government is running the biggest relief campaign in country’s history.

Sania said it is a one-time assistance and Rs144 billion have been allocated for the purpose. She, however, said that additional resources may be earmarked if the demand for Ehsas Emergency Cash assistance grows higher. She said quota for all the federating units, including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, has been allocated as per census, she said Punjab has earmarked additional funds for 700,000 people and Sindh 250,000 people.

She said transfer of cash assistance will be ensured in transparent and rule-based manner. She said there will be three types of responses to people’s SMS seeking cash assistance, which include eligible, ineligible and contact to your respective district administration.

She said employees of provincial and federal governments are not eligible for the assistance. She said at present we have database of employees of provincial and federal governments, Railways, Pakistan Post, and BISP, while data of autonomous bodies will hopefully be available in next 24 hours.

She said an SMS response will have to go through the wealth profiling test before becoming eligible for the assistance. She said existing Kafalat beneficiaries, who are getting regular cash transfer of Rs2,000 per month, will be given additional Rs1,000; hence, they too will get a tranche of Rs12,000 covering four months. She said under this category 4.5 million people will be benefited.

She said higher eligibility or poverty threshold will be used to identify four million beneficiaries through the national socioeconomic databases, while another 3.5 million people will come from districts.