Female beneficiaries under Ehsaas Kafalat Programme: PM to review disbursement of payments in Sukkur today

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to visit district Sukkur in Sindh on Friday (today) to review disbursement of payments to female beneficiaries under Ehsaas Kafalat initiative.

In this context, the PM will visit a payment site in Sukkur where he will interact with Kafalat beneficiary women to examine biometrically enabled payments, according to Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division (PASSD).

Under Ehsaas Kafalat initiative, some 4.25 million women beneficiaries are being paid Rs 2,000 each on monthly basis.

Earlier this week, payments to some 4.25 million women beneficiaries started across Pakistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).

The six-month payment cycle covers a period of January to June 2021 and each Kafalat beneficiary is, at once, paid Rs 12,000 (for six months). The federal government claims that the number of Kafalat beneficiaries would be increased to seven million, gradually.

In Sindh, 2.4 million women beneficiaries are paid monthly stipends of Rs 2,000 each and the number is expected to increase with the enrolment of new households after the completion of ongoing nationwide Ehsaas survey expectedly by June 2021.

Ehsaas has set up 516 specialized payment camps throughout Sindh to roll out recently opened Kafalat payments for the period Jan– Jun 2021, according to PASSD.

During the Covid-19 situation, Ehsaas Emergency Cash worth Rs 56.7 billion was disbursed in all districts of Sindh among more than five million households, a PASSD statement said.

In Sukkur Division that comprises of Sukkur, Khairpur and Ghotki districts, some 714,756 million beneficiaries received Ehsaas Emergency Cash worth Rs 8.2 billion amid Covid-19 last year, the statement added.

Since its launch in March 2019, the different initiatives of Ehsaas Kafalat, Waseela-e-Taleem Digital, undergraduate scholarships, interest free loans and several others have been rolled out in Sindh to uplift the deserving households.

In Karachi, specifically, as many as 173,214 deserving households are currently benefiting from Ehsaas Kafalat and more than 8,188 children are currently receiving quarterly stipends under primary education conditional cash transfers. During the Covid-19 lockdown period in 2020, Ehsaas Emergency Cash worth Rs 7.4 billion was transferred to 756,858 deserving families in Karachi.

In addition, the federal government has set up five new Panagahs in Karachi that offer shelter to those in need.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021