Islamabad: Special Assistant to Prime Minister (PM) on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar informed on Sunday that Emergency Cash Assistance Payments to 12 million families under the Ehsaas program would start on Wednesday (April 8), a news source reported.
As per the publication, she informed a press conference that PKR 12,000 per household would be distributed among each of the 12 million needy households to assist them during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Nishtar informed that it was a one-time assistance and the government approved PKR 144 billion for the said assistance programme. She said that millions of messages had been received on 8171 regarding the payment.
Nishtar highlighted that the cash assistance would be disbursed in a rule-based, transparent manner. The people who will send messages seeking assistance will receive one of the three responses: ineligible, eligible, and contact your department administration, she added.
Nishtar revealed that quotas had been established for all federating units, including Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) as per the population census. Punjab has allocated additional assistance funds for 700,000 people and Sindh has earmarked 250,000 people for financial assistance, she added.
