Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Dr Sania Nishtar Wednesday revealed that digital monitoring of Ehsaas Panagahs will be introduced soon to further improve the services.

Convening a stock-take workshop with Ehsaas Panagah teams here, she said,“We are fully committed to improving standards and will soon introduce digital monitoring of Ehsaas Panagahs”. “The Prime Minister has given strict instructions that people visiting Panagahs should be served with dignity and there should be no compromise on quality of service, maintenance, hygiene and cleanliness and food quantity as well as quality”, emphasised Dr Sania.

To ensure that people are served with utmost dignity and self-respect, Ehsaas is providing refresher training to the staff of panagahs. The administrative, operational and monitoring staff of all five Ehsaas Panagahs including Assistant Directors, Deputy Directors and Shift Supervisors joined the workshop.

During the workshop a stocktake was done of the factors which impact quality, gaps were assessed, and a strategy was developed to improve standards. New monitoring protocols were also developed. “Digital monitoring will now be mapped into monitoring dashboards and there will be strict accountability,” said Dr Sania.

The workshop comprehensively reviewed living and catering standards to create a more viable living environment in Panagahs. Under the Ehsaas umbrella, 22 Panagahs have been built up so far nationwide. These panagahs provide “one star+ bed and breakfast facility with meals, essentials, hygiene and security standards. Each Panagah serves free meals to 400 people and offers a 100-bed facility for overnight stay.

Leveraging on IT capabilities, the living standards have already been structured with enhanced infrastructure for food catering and living, security protocols, standardised capacity, organised HR, eligibility criteria, effective monitoring, regulated donations and financial details.

Panagah is one of the priority programmes of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Panagahs not only provide shelter to daily wage earners but also a two-time meal to them. Secretary of Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division (PASSD), Muhammad Ali Shahzada, Malik Zaheer Abbas Khokhar, Managing Director Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal and Additional Secretary PASSD, Captain (Retd) Saeed Ahmad Nawaz were also present.