Ehsaas Rashan drive to ‘aid families’ in inflation

Sania says Rs1,000 a month subsidy will be provided on purchase of flour, pulses, ghee, cooking oil

PESHAWAR:

In view of the recent price hike due to the coronavirus pandemic, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation Senator Dr Sania Nishtar on Sunday highlighted that Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the 'Ehsaas Rashan programme' to provide edible items to people at low rates.

Addressing a news conference after giving a briefing at National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) in Peshawar, Dr Sania said the Ehsaas Rashan programme launched by the federal government, which also has a 65 per cent share of the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, had an aim to provide relief to the poor.

She added that as many as 20 million families identified through the recently completed Ehsaas survey would benefit from the programme, adding that 130 million people overall would benefit nationwide which is 53 per cent of the population.

Dr Sania said Ehsaas Rashan provides a subsidy of Rs1,000 a month to each of the 20 million families on the purchase of flour, pulses, ghee and cooking oil.

A 30 per cent subsidy will be given on these three items, she added.

Ehsaas has developed a digitally enabled mobile point of sale system in collaboration with National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to serve beneficiaries through a network of Kiryana stores designated by NBP all over the country, Dr Sania informed reporters.

Read ‘Info about Ehsaas now on a single platform’

The SAPM said she would visit 30 cities in this connection, adding that the citizens could get information on the website for their registration to avail benefits of the programme that would be continued for three weeks and the programme would be started in December.

She informed reporters that those families who have less than 50,000 per month income were also eligible to apply for registration.

However, those government employees who have less than Rs31,500 salary per month would also get benefit from the programme.