KARACHI: The Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme has served more than 10 million beneficiaries since nine weeks of its commencement. The programme was launched on April 9, 2020, to extend immediate cash assistance of Rs 12,000 each to Covid-19 lockdown affected families. Overall, Rs 144 billion will be disbursed to more than 12 million families.

While remarking views on ongoing process of Ehsaas Emergency Cash disbursement, Dr Sania Nishtar, Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation said, "By the grace of Almighty Allah we have been able to achieve 10 million mark in Cash disbursement within a period of nine weeks." With the help of district administrations of provinces, law enforcement agencies, NADRA and partner banks, we will meet our target to serve 12 million by the end of this month" she reiterated.

Cumulatively, so far, 10.019 million deserving families under categories I, II and III of Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme have collected financial assistance of Rs 12,000 each that sums up to Rs 121.67 billion. This amount has been disbursed among the daily wagers, piece-rate workers and labourers till June 11, 2020 since the beginning of the payment operation under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme on April 9. To facilitate the beneficiaries amid Covid-19 pandemic, Ehsaas has set up more than 10,000 payment sites across the country.

As per provincial and regional breakdown available on the online Ehsaas disbursements portal, as of today, an amount of Rs. 52.70 billion among 43.42 million beneficiaries in Punjab, Rs.36.63 billion among 30.34 million beneficiaries in Sindh and Rs.22.69 billion has been distributed among 18.45 million beneficiaries of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Till today, an amount of Rs 2.12 billion has been disbursed among more than 0.172 million beneficiaries in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Rs 6.5 billion among 0.497 million beneficiaries of Balochistan, Rs 0.88 billion among more than 70,000 beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan and Rs 0.56 billion among more than 46,000 beneficiaries of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).-PR