Sania Nishtar launches Ehsaas survey in South Waziristan

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Sania Nishtar launched Ehsaas National Socio-economic Registry survey in South Waziristan to benefit locals by registering them under its multiple initiatives.

During her visit to Tank and South Waziristan, the SAPM also met with four tribal Jirgas and sensitized their elders and influential about purpose of the ongoing survey, said a news release received here.

Addressing the Jirgas, she appealed them to facilitate survey teams in door-to-door collection of household data.

“Poverty profiling of the households was being done through a computer aided digital system and would be completed in the next few months,” she noted.

She said tribal people should participate in the survey to get benefits from a multitude of conditional and unconditional cash transfer under Ehsaas programme.

Sania said the government had executed the new Ehsaas survey on apolitical basis so that no deserving family remained unattended under the flagship social protection programme.

According to Ehsaas policy, she said the survey would ensure the inclusion of poor families in several Ehsaas initiatives- Kafaalat, Waseela-eTaleem Digital, Undergraduate Scholarship, Amdan, Interest Free Loan and Nashonuma.

She thanked the local teachers for doing a commendable job in executing survey enumerations.

She said with the support of local teachers under the technical handholding of Ehsaas, the survey would be completed in those areas at earliest.

She maintained that the survey approach was being accelerated across the southern tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the main priority goals of Ehsaas were to help the vulnerable and uplift the under-developed districts.

She informed that 65 per cent survey in Tank district had already been completed. Tank and South Waziristan were the most underprivileged districts of KP with high rates of poverty, malnutrition and infant mortality.

Earlier, Dr. Sania held a news conference with the local press and media in Tank to describe the methodology and digital approach adopted for the Ehsaas survey.