The distribution of Rs200 billion among the 12 million deserving families under the Ehsaas Emergency Programme would start in the ongoing week as part of the federal government's initiative to financially support the downtrodden segments of the society in the backdrop of the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
Speaking to sections of media on Monday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr Sania Nishtar said more than 34 million messages were received by the applicants seeking assistance under the Ehsaas Emergency Programme at the designated official number.
"Under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, we are determined to reach out to people from downtrodden segments of the society whose livelihood has been adversely affected due to the preventive measures against [the] coronavirus. These people would be provided with financial support, which would be a much-needed respite for the deserving families in these testing times," Nishtar said.
Presently, the federal and provincial governments have respectively launched three major programmes; Ehsaas Emergency Programme, Ehsaas Imdad Package Punjab, and Insaf Imdad Programme Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to provide financial aid to needy in the backdrop of the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
The Ehsaas Emergency Programme is directly executed by the federal government under the supervision of Sania Nishtar.
It envisages providing financial assistance to 12,000,000 families from across Pakistan under the 1.2 trillion rupees Economic Relief Package approved by the federal cabinet last week.
Under Ehsaas Emergency Programme, each family would be provided at once Rs12,000 on the basis of four-monthly assistance of Rs3,000 per month.
Rs150 billion to Rs200 billion have been allocated to provide cash grants to the downtrodden segments of the society.
The Ehsaas Imdad Package Punjab is executed by Punjab government under the supervision of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar.
Earlier, this programme aimed to provide Rs4,000 each to 2.5 million poor families in the Punjab.
Now, the amount to be provided to the poor families has been increased from Rs4,000 to Rs12,000.
The Insaf Imdad Programme Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is executed by the KP government under the supervision of CM KP Mahmood Khan.
This package aims to provide Rs2,000 to each poor family.
The exact number of families to be provided assistance under this programme would be determined after a detailed survey, official sources told Business Recorder.