Govt Allocates Rs 260b For 'Ehsaas Program' In Budget 201-22: Dr Sania

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr. Sania Nishtar on Friday said the government has allocated Rs 260 billion for 'Ehsaas Program' in Budget 201-22 for poverty alleviation and to provide relief to the low income people in the society

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Jun, 2021 ) :Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr. Sania Nishtar on Friday said the government has allocated Rs 260 billion for 'Ehsaas Program' in Budget 201-22 for poverty alleviation and to provide relief to the low income people in the society.

Major focus of the government is to execute the Ehasaas Program with its true spirit in 14 different categories for low income people, including widows, orphans, poor, unemployed, needy students and special citizens in the society, Dr. Sania Nishtar said while addressing the Senate session in Parliament House.

The SAPM said, we have evolved the dynamic digital social protection ecosystem for the future to ensure transparency and accountability in our program. She said that a comprehensive survey was completed through big data analysis by tracking real-time information about the evolution of the beneficiary status, to make social protection adaptive.

Dr Sania Nishtar said after evolving the modern digital data system, around 800,000 beneficiaries of "Ehaas Program' registered in the previous government were disqualified from the program.

She said, "We have introduced digitalization and Information Technology (IT) reforms in our system for enhancing efficiency of the system.

She said that through Ehsaas Kafalat Program, we were providing this financial facility in 124 districts to the low income people in different regions of the country.

The SAPM said that the 'Ehsaas under Graduate 'programme was also approved to provide thousands of Ehsaas undergraduate scholarships for students from different regions of the country in the upcoming Budget 2021-22.

She said that during COVID-19, the government had provided relief of Rs 179 billions to 15 million people from different regions of the country.

Dr Sania Nishtar said that women empowerment was top priority for the government in the coming Budget 2021-22 and allocated 50 percent total resources for women to provide them health and education facilities.

She announced that in January 2022 in the coming Budget, the government has decided to increase the stipend for 'Ehsaas Program' from Rs 12000 to 13000.

While briefing the forum, she also hailed the tax relief provided by the government in the budget and said the government has waved off the tax on industrial raw material to minimize the cost of doing business in the country.

The government, she said, has also decided to introduce tax reforms and automation in the Federal board of Revenue (FBR) for enhancing the efficiency in the tax system and expanding the tax net in the country. Revenue generation is important for financial inclusion to support the low income people in the society, she added.