Govt to provide Rs12,000 cash grant to over 12 mln deserving families: Sania Nishtar

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar on Sunday said the federal government will provide cash assistance of 12,000 rupees to over 12 million deserving families under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program in the wake of COVID-19.

Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, Sania Nishtar said that that that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is running the biggest relief campaign in country’s history.

“We have received millions of messages on SMS service 8171 for Rs12,000 cash grant for deserving families amid coronavirus pandemic,” she said, adding that deserving families will get cash assistance of 12,000 rupees after biometric verification through over 18,065 sale points or retail shops of Habib Bank Limited and Bank Al-Falah across Pakistan.

Read More: PM launches SMS services under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program

The Special Assistant said that transfer of cash assistance will be ensured in a transparent and rule-based manner. She said there will be three types of responses to people’s SMS seeking cash assistance, which include eligible, ineligible, and contact to your respective district administration. She said employees of provincial and federal governments are not eligible for the assistance.

Sani Nishtar further said that existing Kafalat beneficiaries, who are getting regular cash transfer of 2000 rupees per month, will be given additional one thousand rupees; hence, they too will get a tranche of 12,000 rupees covering four months.

It may be noted that Prime Minister Imran Khan last week had formally launched SMS service under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program to provide financial relief to the deserving people.

Pakistan’s coronavirus cases tally on Sunday jumped to 2880 after new COVID-19 infections were reported from across the country during the last 24-hours, the national dashboard maintained by the federal ministry of health showed.

According to the statistics on the dashboard, the death toll in the country from the virus has jumped to 45, with four deaths reported during the past 24 hours.

The latest statistics of the national dashboard stated 170 patients have recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic thus far.

The total count of COVID-19 includes 1163 patients in Punjab, 864 in Sindh, 372 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 206 in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), 185 in Balochistan, 78 in Islamabad, 12 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).