Prime Minister Imran Khan will launch the National Poverty Graduation Initiative Friday, which has been designed to impact 16.28 million people over a period of four years. The Prime Minister will unveil details of the initiative during the planned launch. He was given a briefing on the federal government's initiative on Wednesday.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) for Information & Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, SAPM on Media Affairs Yousaf Baig Mirza, Secretary Poverty Alleviation & Social Safety Division Shaista Sohail, and Secretary Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Ali Raza Bhutta were also present during the meeting. The Prime Minister reviewed various aspects of the programme including budgetary allocation, programme design, criteria and the manner through which transparency will be ensured.
An official stated that various institutions including BISP, Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal, Zakat, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) are expected to work under the umbrella of the programme and a one window operation is also expected to be developed in this regard.
In March 2019, Prime Minister Imran Khan had launched Rs 80 billion poverty alleviation programme 'Ehsas' to help the downtrodden and vulnerable people including the poor, orphans, widows, homeless, disabled, undernourished, jobless and others. He added that the government would allocate an additional amount of Rs 80 billion for social protection programme and spending will be increased to Rs 120 billion in 2021.