The federal government is going to launch an SMS service to register coronavirus lockdown victims for the Ehsaas Emergency Cash program. Sania Nishtar, the Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Chairperson of the Ehsaas Program, said this on a local news channel.
She said that the deserving people will be able to send their National Identity card numbers through an SMS service, to be launched next week, to register for the program. The government, in collaboration with NADRA, will filter out the deserving people.
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With the help of NADRA, we have developed two layers of people in our National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) database. In the first layer, the overall filtering based on various parameters, such as, based on their occupation, belongings and bank balance, will identify the affluence of people.
These people will receive a message from the system, she said, adding that those passing through the first layer will be identified as ‘poor’ in the system and will be considered eligible for the relief fund.
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Such people will receive a message carrying all the details as to which bank they should visit to withdraw their emergency fund.
In a tweet earlier this week, she mentioned that individuals that have an income of up to Rs. 20,000 or less and are unemployed due to coronavirus will be helped under the Ehsaas Emergency Program. Overall, around 10 million families will receive Rs. 12,000 from the government, based on their family size. The daily wagers and laborers will be their top priority.
She also highlighted that the government has increased the threshold of the program, and through the SMS service, 2.5 million more people will be included in the database after proper screening. The SMS service will be launched next week.