Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said on Sunday that the lockdown, which was extended up to April 14 with consensus, had helped reduce the pace of coronavirus spread across the country. Speaking to media from Coronavirus Command and Control Centre, the federal minister said that it was good news that the lockdown, so far, has helped in lessening the speed of coronavirus spread. However, he maintained that this did not mean that disease was not spreading adding that had there been no lockdown, it would have witnessed speedy expansion; however the lockdown reduced its pace. The minister thanked the people for following the lockdown strategy to a great extent, adding that most of the people were following precautionary health advises to save themselves and others form the coronavirus effects. He stressed for continuing with the precautionary measures to fight back coronavirus. The minister, however, said that the coming weeks can test Pakistan health system, adding that the government was improving capacity of hospitals, quatrain facilities, preparing ICU beds and ventilation capacity to deal with the emerging situation. He said that so far the situation was in control, however next few weeks would be testing. On the other hand, the minister added that the lockdown was having direct economic impact, particularly affecting the labourers, poor, shopkeepers and vendors. However, he added if continued, it would also affect middle income people, who could not afford it for a long time. So the government would have to adopt a strategy in the future that would not lead to closure of everything, rather it would have to keep it limited to targeted people and localities. He said that there was a need to build capacity to identify infectious people and areas, then make proper arrangement to keep them away from infecting others and help proper treatment of coronavirus patients. He said that work on developing technological network for such identification was in process. The minister said that hundreds of thousands youth have shown their interest in the volunteer programme to help reach people. He lauded efforts of medical professionals, security personal as well as social workers for their hard work and also appreciated people for adhering to the lockdown strategy to stop coronavirus from spread. Asad Umar also said that he could not make any prediction regarding the end or continuation of the ongoing lockdown across the country. He added that the decision regarding the lockdown would be made this week by the federal government. “Pakistani nation is exhibiting discipline [amid lockdown to contain coronavirus pandemic] excluding people from some areas avoiding to adopt precautionary measures. We are getting achievements in stopping the spread of the virus.” Meanwhile, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar on Sunday said that the payment process under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme would start from Wednesday to support the vulnerable segments of society, affected due to lockdown amid coronavirus threat. Addressing a press conference, Dr Sania said the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme was launched to support the daily wagers and piece-rate workers after lockdown in the country due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The programme will benefit the deserving people from all the four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan through allocating quota as per census. Punjab will contribute Rs 700,000 and Sindh Rs 250,000 from their own budget in this programme, she said. Under an aggressive communication campaign launched recently to benefit four million people, the deserving ones can send SMS to 8171 to check their eligibility status. They will be informed on how to collect money, if they are found eligible. If they are not identified in the database, they will be directed to contact their respective district administration, she said. She said there will be three types of responses to people’s SMS seeking cash assistance, which include eligible, ineligible, and contact to your respective district administration. She said employees of provincial and federal governments were not eligible for the assistance. “Presently we have database of employees of provincial and federal governments, Railways, Pakistan Post, and BISP, while data of autonomous bodies will hopefully be available in next 24 hours,” she added. She said an SMS response would have to go through the wealth profiling test before becoming eligible for the assistance. She said the existing Kafalat beneficiaries, who were getting regular cash transfer of Rs 2,000 per month, would be given additional Rs 1,000; hence, they too would get a tranche of Rs 12,000 covering four months. She said that under this category, 4.5 million people would be benefited. She said higher eligibility or poverty threshold would be used to identify four million beneficiaries through the national socioeconomic databases, while another 3.5 million people would come from districts. Regarding mode of payments, Dr Sania said that deserving families would get cash assistance of Rs 12,000 after biometric verification through over 18,065 sale points or retail shops of Habib Bank Limited and Bank Al-Falah across Pakistan. She said the provincial governments would be requested to provide open public spaces for setting up cash disbursement arrangements, security for these spaces, permission to keep retail POS agents open, management of crowds at cash disbursement points and ensuring preventive measures like facility of hand washing, etc. The assistance under Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme would be provided in the name of male member of the family, she said.