The number of individuals to be supported under the government’s Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme has been increased from 12 million to 16.16 million, showing an increase of over 34 percent informed Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr. Sania Nishtar.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the SAPM said that in category II and III of Ehsaas Emergency Cash, provincial quotas are population based. She added that in categories IV and V, funded by PM's COVID fund, all eligible applicants are being supported on PM's directions.

The Special Assistant said a large number of deserving individuals in Sindh got benefits from this “apolitical decision”.

She said that the final check status of applications web portal and report will be released next week.

Till date, the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme has disbursed over Rs.125.54 billion among more than 10,329,000 beneficiaries under different categories so far since start of the payment process.

As per the latest cash update, a total of over Rs. 54.70 billion has been disbursed among over 4,509,000 deserving families in Punjab so far while around Rs. 37.13 billion has been disbursed among 3,075,000 families in Sindh.

Over Rs. 23.61 billion has been disbursed among more than 1,921,000 beneficiaries in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while over Rs. 6.33 billion has been disbursed among 520,000 persons in Balochistan.

In Azad Jammu and Kashmir, over 2.19 billion have been distributed among 177,000 persons while Rs. 910 million has been distributed among more than 73,000 people in Gilgit Baltistan. An amount of Rs. 640 million has been disbursed among more than 53,000 beneficiaries in Islamabad.