Lawmakers express concerns over Ehsaas poverty survey

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Poverty and Social Protection has sought a comprehensive report on the Ehsaas poverty census survey as members of the lower house raised objections over the methodology and data of it.

During the meeting of the standing committee led by Chairperson Saira Bano on Friday, the MNAs expressed their concerns, saying that the survey claims to have collected data on more than 34 million households, but people in the constituencies did not know when or by whom it was conducted.

“What is the status and reality of this survey?” they asked, expressing apprehensions whether the private companies hired for the survey made a fool of the company.

The chairperson then requested a comprehensive report on the poverty census survey’s procedures and data from the Ministry of Social Security and Poverty Alleviation Coordination.

Further, a bill to amend the Pakistan Baitul Mal Act was tabled in the meeting.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Senator Dr Sania Nishtar informed the committee members that with this bill, “the government wants to bring shelters under the purview of law”.

However, Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Shagufta Jamani raised objections, saying that the bill should be read in detail once and then passed.

Shagufta said in her statement that Ehsaas is the same programme which was the Benazir Income Support Programme.

“You have changed its name to Ehsaas,” she said.

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Sania said, “We have not deleted or changed the name of Benazir Income Support Programme … Benazir Income Support Program is a part of Ehsaas.

“Ehsaas Kafalat programme is run through the Benazir Income Support Programme.”

Sania added that politics should not be done on this “for God's sake … you tell us problems and issues so that we can remove them”.

“We have kept this program separate from politics. It does not involve any kind of political interference. Our job is to serve and provide assistance to the poor and deserving people. To conduct surveys, our staff members go door-to-door to determine who the poor and deserving people are.”

Earlier this month while addressing the launch ceremony, Sania said, “Part of Ehsaas strategy, we have just concluded a new National Socioeconomic Registry of 34.41 million households. We did various validations of the data to precisely identify the real poor.”

She said, “With the readiness of survey, we are now transiting from static to dynamic registry to make it more targeting efficient and avoid possible inclusion and exclusion errors occurred due to continuous change in socioeconomic status of the households especially due to demographic change. Tehsil-level Ehsaas Registration Desks have also been opened all over the country to keep the national socioeconomic registry dynamic.”